Irrelevant. Many people live terrified of ever becoming such. No one wants to be thought of as unworthy of attention, incapable of making impact, or devoid of value. All of which is the threat of irrelevance. An irrelevant sports team, for example, is one that doesn’t deserve headlines, prime time games, or any mention at the water cooler or elsewhere . Such a team probably does not have a viable brand, has no significant history, and may also be on a losing streak. Maybe they aren’t very entertaining either.

     Years ago, a youth asked me why the Church refuses to “get with the times” and change her “position” on issues such as gay marriage, contraception, and abortion (weird how it always revolves around sex, right?). It seemed like an easy enough question to answer: the Church is not a political party, it does not have mutable “positions” on issues, especially when it comes to moral issues such as those brought up. Those in authority within the Church are guided by the Holy Spirit and apply basic natural law principals to figure out moral truths as immutable as human nature itself. The result is teachings of the Church that cannot change.

     In response to this defense, this student shrugged her shoulders and said something absolutely perplexing: “whatever, I just think that’s an awful way to go out.” “What do you mean?”, I asked. She quipped, “If the Church doesn’t move along with the rest of the world on these issues, she will clearly plunge into irrelevancy”.

     I was baffled by such an asinine and foolish comment. In fact, the comment was so layered in fallacy that I made a full lesson of it and used it year after year. Would the Church become irrelevant if it did not embrace some sort of “hyper-modernistic” code of moral relativism? Well of course not! After all, how relevant is the Episcopalian ecclesial community today? Not relevant at all. Why not?

     When an establishment “caves” and becomes just like everyone else, there goes one of the reasons as to why one would pay attention to it. The group that says, “well, I guess everyone else is right, we better adjust to what they are doing” is also admitting that they have been wrong, and that the profane is in the right. Hard to call a group that admits that much error and defeat “relevant”.

     Or put another way, imagine a Church that for 2000 years has built it’s distinction from all other worldly establishments on insisting to be INFALLIBLE on Magisterial teachings on faith and morals. This establishment is literally the only institution that has ever been able to do such in the history of mankind. Now imagine that Church coming out tomorrow and saying, “Well, not really. In fact, we were wrong on some of the things that we consistently said were some of the most egregious offenses against the dignity of the human person and against God Himself”. That Church would now become more relevant? HA!

     Furthermore, I would challenge my students and ask them, “for the sake of the argument, let’s just pretend the Holy Spirit isn’t helping. What man would be dumb enough to make some sort of statement of Magisterial weight to undermine the consistency, and therefore the authority, of the Magisterium?” It would be like the chief editor of the newspaper using his authority to force an article about his inability to read or write on the front page of the newspaper. Or perhaps it would be like a man who were to shoot himself through the head in order to hit a dangerous man behind him with a bullet (you know, in order to protect himself).

     Well, I felt quite confident in this line of reasoning for years. It was the sort of reasoning that you hung your hat on, drank a glass of milk, and then slept like a baby once you had it figured out. And then 2016 happened. Rather, Amoris Laetiatia happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. One day, I simply woke up and the ole’ Zuckerberg machine was exploding with controversy about this famous encyclical. The hype over this seemingly cataclysmic moment was jarring, I thought. One thing I did think was strange, was how quickly so many people were able to form such STRONG opinions about this document within hours of its formal release. Not many were qualified theologians, to boot. As a man who prides himself in academic honesty, and as someone with multiple degrees in Theology, I took it upon myself to use my training, do the hard work of reading all 200 plus pages, and to emerge as the voice of reason amidst the chaos.

     So I sat down ,when I had time, over the following three days and got reading. For seven chapters, things were going ok. “Hey”, I thought, “Pope Francis seems disturbed that the marriage rate is descending so low. ME TOO! Oh, there he is saying abortion is a grave evil, just as all of his predecessors agree, would you look at that”. And it went on like that until I finally reached the coute de gra; chapter 8.

     It was all there. Language that suggested that those who lived together as husband and wife after divorce and remarriage (no annulment), were basically married. Fairly ambiguous language indicating that it’s understandable that such couples would not be living chastely or according to the moral “ideal” (first time as a trained moral theologian that I had even heard a basic moral standard referred to as an “ideal”). And then, I finally read it. The smoking footnote. The footnote that Pope Francis responded to with “what footnote?” when asked about it by an Italian newspaper reporter on an airplane (could those interviews just go away forever please?). Footnote 351 could only be read as consistent with Pope John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio with the help of some serious mental and theological gymnastics. At the very least, I couldn’t argue that the vast majority of theologically untrained Catholics would read it as something other than permission for divorced and remarried Catholics to consistently receive Holy Communion without annulment or repentance.

     That was an insanely sobering moment for me. I’m not going to bother going over arguments explaining what exactly happened in the document or it’s ramifications as they relate to the faith. Strong and wise men have presented them. Seek what they have to say if you are interested. Jesus Christ’s Church is still founded upon rock and the gates of hell shall not prevail. But I will say that as someone unable to figure it all out myself, it was painful seeing so much bad commentary by untrained people both celebrating the encyclical and trashing it who had not even read the whole thing. For I decided then that the only solid play was to step away and say nothing about it at all. It really hurt, but it seemed to be the most intellectually honest and at the same time least scandalous move.

     The worst article that I read was by a random secular author who clearly knew nothing about the Catholic Church. The man was definitely no academic either, but he had hundreds of thousands of followers on the Dorsey machine. He wrote an article all about how Francis is a “stealth” reformer, finally bringing the Catholic Church into modern times. He went on to conclude that while he admired the effort, being stealthy wasn’t good enough, nor was it necessary. Instead, he opined, the only way the Church could retain its relevance was if she were to make many hard “reforms” against the things that she has long taught, all the things it has held as sacred, immediately.

     Five years later, I am well past being silent. Nor will I be reactive. What impact can I make? Probably not much, but here I go anyway.

     The acceptance of Cardinal Robert Sarah’s resignation is not to be taken lightly. If you are not informed, please do your homework, you will quickly see that Sarah was, effectively, removed. Why was Cardinal Sarah removed from his position as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship at this time? I’m not entirely sure, but if you don’t think it is going to result in changes to the liturgy, I have some ocean front property to sell you in Arizona. How grave might these changes be? I’m not predicting anything major, but I think a comment made by Sarah over the summer in his rebuke against clerics proposing to distribute Holy Communion in sacrilegious ways should at least get our antennas up. On liturgical scandals promoted by a few notoriously heterodox German Bishops, Sarah said, "Unfortunately, many things are done in Germany that are not Catholic, but that doesn't mean you have to imitate them. Recently I heard a bishop say that in the future there will be no more Eucharistic assemblies, only the liturgy of the Word. But this is Protestantism."

     Do I personally think something as drastic as removal of the Holy Eucharist from mass (well actually it wouldn’t be mass anymore if that happened) is coming? No, I don’t. Could other things that a good, holy, and orthodox Cardinal, like Sarah, was the firewall against be on the table now? Well, is the Pachamama pregnant?

     This is a time to really cherish every mass you attend. Do not let these Sundays go to waste! If you can get to mass more than just on Sunday, do it! Additionally, let your voice be heard and your devotion to the truth and God’s law be observed. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard priests say they are moved by the laity who are staying strong in such turbulent and bizarre times in our Church. Remember, there have been bizarre times, heck there have been terrible popes before. This is the time to storm heaven with prayers and to open yourself wide to sacramental grace. Because when the winds blow, it’s there for those who stay strong.

     As always, in the end, Her Immaculate Heart will triumph. For your part, it’s sainthood or nothing. Go get it.

 

God bless

 

Gadfly