Podcasts for Young Philosophers and IB Theory of Knowledge Students

Deacon D. McManaman

We’ve heard some negative press about Pope Francis’ responses to the recent Dubia. One person I know thought it was an instance of “giving scandal” and believed that now every wayward pastor and every same sex attracted couple will take it as an endorsement to continue in sin. I do not share these beliefs. What follows are some thoughts on why I believe such sentiments are not quite on point.

The responses to the Dubia are, I believe, rather brilliant. There is no doubt in my mind that the entire response is a “prudential matter”. It is also undeniable that wayward priests and anyone with questionable honesty will abuse what is written there and use it to justify many things that were not said therein. We know this from experience, i.e., the aftermath of Vatican II. The only difficulty with questioning prudential judgments is knowing what would happen if a different decision were made. For example, what would be the state of the Church had Vatican II not taken place? We simply don’t know–there are myriads of possibilities. What would have happened had the U.S not toppled Sadaam Hussein? Would he have finally achieved nuclear capacity? Very difficult questions that require tremendous learning. So it is a prudential matter, the application of principles to a concrete situation with innumerable factors to consider, and which require other intellectual virtues besides a knowledge of general principles, such as memory, docility, foresight, circumspection, caution, and shrewdness (Cf. Aquinas, S.T., II-II, q. 48). Memory requires experience, and the experiences we have are not universal, but are very much circumscribed. I am an experienced high school teacher; I am not and never have been a principal (administrator). Nor have I been a pastor of a parish, nor have I been a bishop of a diocese, nor an Archbishop, nor a Cardinal. And I certainly have no idea what it means to be a pope. That is why after a while, I stopped “second guessing” our school administrators’ decisions. I came to see that they have information that I don’t have. My friend became a vice-principal and a principal, and over the years he shared with me things that I otherwise would have missed. I only had the four walls of my classroom to deal with and the information that comes via that limited channel. That too is the reason that my friend, Major General JR Bernier (former Surgeon General of Canada and NATO) refused to “second guess” the medical advisors of the Ford government–because he lacks the situation/region specific political/economic/viral/medical etc., data that he would need to make such decisions, data that changes every day. 

But here is my theological point. We are each given certain charisms to fulfill the duties of our vocation, and a bishop is given the charism of office. The Pope especially is given the charism of office (“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” Lk 22, 32). Not only does he see what we in our very limited situation do not see, but he has a charism that you and I do not possess, because we don’t need it–God has not called us to govern the universal Church. Your charisms and experience are specific to your unique vocation.

It is true that if we simplify everything to a “black and white” level, those at the very bottom of the intellectual and moral ladder will have clarity (whether or not they obey is another matter), but those higher up that ladder will see that things are just not that simple, because they understand that reality is very complex (as does Pope Francis), and so on their end, the Church will lack credibility as an institution capable of dealing intelligently in a highly complex world, and so the Church will lack relevance to a good portion of the world. So, it’s like squeezing a balloon. The problem just gets transferred from one level to another. But a decision has to be made. The decision must be grounded in the truth, and if the truth is complicated, so be it. What is the best decision to make in the circumstances? We have to know all the factors involved, which requires a great deal of experience, and we need that specific charism, because experience is still not enough. The Pope has that charism, I don’t. As for the Pope’s theological responses to the Dubia, they are, from an epistemological point of view, absolutely right on point. Is now the opportune time to introduce such distinctions? He seems to think so. We have to trust that the Lord has given him the charism to discern, that he is the vicar of Christ and that “he who hears you hears me” (Luke 10, 16).  

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_399growingold.html

The following essay was written in 2022, as part of a book of essays on Catholic Education, by a Canadian Catholic Publisher. I had this essay removed from that collection because I did not wish to have it associated with another essay that constituted an unfair and inaccurate depiction of Catholic Education in Ontario. There are so many good Catholic teachers and administrators trying their best to bring the good news of the gospel to the students, and navigating through today’s waters is not always easy, but alarmist and hyperbolic screeds do nothing to further Catholic Education in this province.

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_395educationdoctrinalvacuums.html

Chapter 14 of Some Fundamentals of Catholicism

Latest book:

Hello my friends: Here is my latest book that I wrote for teachers on teaching the parables. I hope it will be a useful resource. Order here.

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_394transfiguration.html

Deacon D. McManaman

In the first reading (Dan 7, 9-10, 13-14), Daniel sees the One who is Ancient of Days taking his throne. Of course, Ancient of Days refers to God, who has lived throughout the entire course of human history; for he is not subject to the passing of time. And his throne is fiery flames, and a “stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence”. In Scripture, fire is a symbol of the divine love; for our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12, 29). And the first reading tells us that ten thousand times ten thousand attended him, and a thousand thousands served him, which are symbolic ways of expressing a number beyond counting. 

But then Daniel sees one like a ‘son of man’ coming with the clouds of heaven, who was presented before the One who is Ancient of Days, and to him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. And his dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be destroyed. 

This is a fascinating vision, because it is a vision of the First and Second Persons of the Trinity, which isn’t revealed until the coming of Christ who reveals God as a Trinity of Persons. And of course Jesus is precisely the “son of man” referred to in this vision. In the New Testament, Jesus refers to himself so often as the Son of Man. For example, he asks: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”, or, “so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic…”, or, “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath”, and so on and so forth. This title “Son of Man” refers back to this vision in the book of Daniel. 

But what is interesting is that in this vision, the One who is Ancient of Days transfers his glory to the son of man; to him is given dominion and glory and kingship. What happened to it? Why don’t we see it? St. Paul provides the answer to this in his letter to the Philippians:

… though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Jesus divested himself of the glory that was his in eternity. He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and he was executed as a messianic pretender. And in the gospel reading today, Jesus, the Son of Man, takes only Peter, James, and John with him and he is transfigured before them. They are given the privilege to see him in his glory, “the glory as of the Father’s only Son” (Jn 1, 14). And Peter actually writes of this experience: “We had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Pt 1, 16). And he refers to this as a lamp shining in a dark place. And of course the voice they heard said: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 

This is an interesting set of readings for me because I just returned from a trip to London and Paris, my daughter’s graduation gift, which had been interrupted by the pandemic in 2020. And of course she had us going everywhere, especially the royal palaces: Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London,and the Chateau de Versailles outside of Paris, etc. And if you’ve visited any of these, you know what they’re like: huge ornate rooms with large neo-classical paintings on the walls, another large chamber with the king’s royal bed, a dining hall with a very long table where guests are entertained, displays of crown jewels, diamond studded dresses, etc. So I’ll be fine if I never see another palace again in my life. But what struck me walking through these royal palaces is the glory that was bestowed upon human beings who in the end are just limited, flawed, sinful human beings subject to death like everyone else. We don’t have divine glory by nature, but human beings seek it for themselves. They desire it, usurp it, and the kings and queens of history were glorified with an earthly glory that feigns divine glory, and yet there was nothing in any of these kings, queens, or princes that would demand such extraordinary treatment and worship.

With Christ, we have the very opposite. He is the Son of Man that Daniel saw in a vision, to whom has been given glory, dominion and kingship by God the Father, Ancient of Days. He is God the Son, the 2nd Person of the Trinity. All things came to be through him; he is before all things, and he has one predominant love: the will of the Father, the glorification of God the Father. And so he entered into our darkness, which is a realm of darkness because humanity has lost its way. Instead of seeking to love, worship and glorify God, we have a proclivity to seek our own glory. The human heart longs to be treated like royalty. We find this tendency even in the Church throughout her history. It’s a very difficult proclivity to overcome, even for clerics. But it is this that brings darkness to this world. 

The true king of the universe emptied himself of his proper divine glory and came among us as a slave, a servant, in ordinary human likeness, revealing it momentarily only to Peter, James, and John, to strengthen them for what is to come. He chose to descend. This king does not compel us to worship him; we must do so freely. And since he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, our ascension to true glory is a descent. We ascend by descending in the Person of Christ. 

We speak of life as a learning process; the spiritual life is a descending process. With every day that passes, we are 24 hours closer to the grave than we were the day before. Every day, the heart must die to itself, to its aspiration to self-glorification, and empty itself further, and the aging process helps us with this. We slowly lose certain abilities, physical abilities, mental abilities, we can’t remember as well, we are increasingly dependent upon the help of others, the illusion of independence is gradually being dispelled, and if we have not stopped learning, we realize more and more as the years go on that we know virtually nothing. The aging process makes humility much easier, but we have to “go with it”, surrender to it, allow it to show us what we really are in the end: dust and ashes. But that’s our glory, not intellectual brilliance. Intelligence is not the glory of man. Intelligence is the glory of the angels, who are inconceivably more brilliant than the most brilliant human being. Intellectually we are very slow and sluggish, including the most brilliant human beings. The glory of man, on the contrary, is humility. We cannot outdo angels in terms of knowledge or intelligence, but we can outdo them in humility if we are willing. The problem is that very few are willing. But that is our glory, and that’s why Mary is the Queen of Angels, higher than the angels. She is inferior in her nature, her human nature compared to the angelic nature, but she outdoes them in humility. In her magnificat, she says: the Lord has looked upon the “nothingness” of his handmaiden. She has no clue as to her uniqueness; she saw herself as ‘nothing’. That’s why she was a fitting vessel for God the Son to become a son of man. Her queenship is real, authentic, because it corresponds to a real glory hidden within her, which is the glory of her humility. 

A Homily for the Confirmation Candidates of St. Lawrence the Martyr and Blessed Trinity Church, Toronto, Ontario, 2023

https://lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_393joyinwiderness.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

Some people refer to Confirmation as a rite of passage, as we find in Judaism (the Bar mitzva), or the ancient initiation rituals of the Indigenous peoples. A rite of passage is a passage into adulthood. I don’t know how good that comparison is, but having Confirmation at this age would easily suggest that it is. But the indigenous rite of passage was a very uncomfortable affair. The boy would be snatched from his mother, covered in paint or blood, and sent out into the wilderness for a few months, to learn to survive all on his own. Those who did not, died in the wilderness; those who survived, returned to the tribe and were given a new name; they were no longer children. 

Well, our Confirmation preparation classes were hardly comparable to this. However, although we might not send you out into the wilderness, the realm of chaos, there is a sense in which God does. The society in which we live is in many ways a chaotic wilderness. It is no longer a society congenial to Catholicism, as it was in the 1950s. It’s very difficult to be a Catholic today, especially if you are a teenager. 

There’s a lot of good things going on in the world today, but there are also a lot of things that are so contrary to everything we believe in. This is especially the case in the realm of morality, especially issues of sexuality, marriage, the life issues, such as abortion and euthanasia. It’s very difficult for a young teenager to make it through his or her teenage years while remaining faithful to Christ and his Church. But if you do, you are a hero in many ways. This is something that a priest from Washington D.C said to me years ago. I met him while hitchhiking to Nashville, Tennessee back in 1979, when I was 17 years old. He picked me up on the highway just outside of Columbus, Ohio and took me to Kentucky. He was such a joyful priest that I had made the decision to return to the Church that my family had left when I was in grade 3. It was his joy that really struck me. He was celibate, he couldn’t get married, burdened with all sorts of duties and responsibilities, and here I was young and free, I could get married, and yet he was clearly happier than I was. What was the key to his joy, I’d wondered. Well, I figured it out when he asked me whether I go to Church. I said no, I haven’t seen the inside of a Church since the 3rd grade. “Do your parents go to Church?” I said no, not at all. And much to my chagrin, he was so disappointed. I said why do you have to go to Church. And he yelled out the answer: “To receive the body of Christ! And you know, I hadn’t heard those words since grade 3 when I would attend Mass and hear the priest say: Take this all of you and eat of it, this is my body which will be given up for you. That whole world came back to me at that moment, and I knew that this was the way into that world that I once knew, a world I wanted back into. That was the key to his joy. The body of Christ. The Eucharist. And that is what is going to bring you stability during your teenage years ahead. 

The happiest teenagers and those with the greatest mental health, according to studies in Britain, are those teenagers who practice their religion faithfully. Even my university students that I teach now, the ones who radiate joy and who show the greatest resilience and who write with such depth, are the religious ones who are quoting scripture here and there. Their lives are immersed in the Scriptures. They feed off of the word of God. 

Furthermore, the holier you become, the more interesting your life becomes. I don’t know if I told you this story during one of our classes together, but my best friend is a priest of the Hamilton Diocese, and over the years I’d visit him often, stay the weekend, preach for him to give him a break. And I’m an early riser, so I went down one Saturday morning, about 5 in the morning, and I said my breviary. After the Office of Readings and the Morning prayer, I looked up and saw a large bookshelf at the other end of the living room. I noticed Butler’s four volume lives of the saints, the newest version. So, I went up and decided that I would close my eyes and pick a volume at random, open it and put my finger down, at random. Wherever my finger landed, I would read the life of that saint. So, I got some 3rd century unknown saint. Never heard of her before. It was about 3⁄4 of a page in length. When I finished reading, I felt exhilaration. It really woke me up. I thought, what an interesting life. Then I did it again, picked a volume at random. This time I got a 7th century saint, and I read about his life, completely different from the previous, and again, I could feel it in my body, it was like I drank a glass of orange juice. His life was so different from the one before, but so interesting. 

And this is the lie of Hollywood. We’ve been told over and over again that goodness is boring, and evil is interesting. And it is really the other way around. Evil is terribly boring. It is empty. There’s nothing to it. It’s all the same. But goodness is so diverse, rich, and interesting. 

The more you give your lives over to God, the more interesting your life will become. You will no longer know the meaning of the word boredom. Give yourself to God and He’ll take you on a journey that will be full of surprises. There will be difficulties, struggles, challenges, but He’ll provide you with the graces and the fortitude to overcome all these obstacles, and struggle is what makes life rewarding. A life without struggle is soon intolerably boring. A teaching colleague of mine won the Lotto 649 and he decided to quit, to leave teaching. Another colleague of mine met up with him years later, and he said that he looked lost, without purpose. There’s another Hollywood lie, that labour and struggle bring discontent, while rest, leisure, and an easy life is a happy life. Absolutely false. When you are doing what God is calling you to do, you are happy, joyful. 

So, I encourage you to continue down this road. Be faithful to the graces that you are going to receive today in Confirmation. Don’t waste them. Cooperate with God and let Him lead you to where He wants to take you. 

The following two questions were addressed to me by a local bible study group.

Why is Mary’s perpetual virginity so important to the Catholic faith?

This is a good question, and difficult to answer. What is the significance of Mary’s perpetual virginity? Sexual union is a marital act, and in marriage, the two (male and female) give themselves entirely and completely to one another. Marriage is a one flesh union, and the sexual act is expressive of that one body union. The sexual act has a twofold goodness: 1) it is an expression and celebration of marital union, and 2) it is procreative. 

Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, who says: “Let it be done to me according to your word”. She offers herself, but her offering is complete and total. She gives her body, so to speak, and the result is the conception of the Son of God in her womb. So there is a kind of marriage here (something like a marriage). There is a union between Mary and the Holy Spirit, and that union results in the conception of the Messiah. Mary’s virginity expresses the fact that she belongs completely and totally (which includes her body) to God the Holy Spirit. And so, it is fitting that Mary was not “married” in the complete sense (which would involve sexual consummation). Joseph was the husband of Mary, but we really don’t have a consummated marriage here. But it is interesting because there is a sense in which the Holy Spirit is a kind of Motherhood in the heart of the Trinity (there is a feminine element in God, so to speak). The Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception, while Mary is the created immaculate conception (St. Maximilian Kolbe). In fact, St. Maximilian Kolbe pointed out that if the Holy Spirit were to become flesh (as God the Son became flesh), we would see no difference between that incarnation and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary is not God, she is not divine, but she does reflect the feminine that is in God. 

So Mary’s perpetual virginity has nothing to do with the false notion that sex is dirty or impure, etc. In marriage, sexual union is a sign of fidelity and complete belonging. When you belong entirely to another, it means that the self-giving was not partial, but total. So married love is undivided love. Mary’s virginity signifies that she belongs not partially, but completely and totally to God. This is not to suggest that married people cannot belong entirely to God. Matrimony is a sacrament, and it is a sign of the love that Christ has for his Bride, the Church, so it is very much a way of belonging to God completely. But Mary conceived Christ as a result of her complete and total surrender to the Holy Spirit, which is a kind of marriage; for it is a union that results in a conception. Her perpetual virginity signifies that perpetual belonging.

If God is almighty, why take 6 days (plus one day of rest) to create the world? Why not do it in one? For that matter, why does He need a day off?

The story of the 6 days of creation is not meant to be taken literally. This story does not mean that God literally created the world in 6 days and literally rested on the 7th. The story is an allegory, and an allegory is a story that contains a deeper meaning besides the literal meaning. In Hebrew, the word ‘seven’ is ‘saba’, which is derived from the root word ‘seba’, which means ‘to swear, as in swearing an oath’. To swear an oath is to enter into a covenant, and a covenant is a sacred family bond. The depiction of God creating the world in 6 days and resting on the 7th day is meant to convey the fact that creation is a covenant. God enters a covenant with humanity. Covenant means ‘family bond’, and the Hebrew word for family is be’tab, which means ‘my father’s house’. Notice that in the first story of creation, God is building a house (my father’s house). We have the creation of time (1st day), space (2nd day), a foundation, and then he furnishes the house. Creation is God’s house or family. Creation is a covenant. God ‘sevens’ a covenant, or ‘swears an oath’ (seven). 

That family or covenant is shattered in Genesis 3, and the entire history of Israel is really the history of the restoration of that covenant.  

But creation is not something that happens in time. God is not “producing” as we produce things like tables or houses. God creates temporal beings, brings them into being from nothing and sustains them in being. This includes bringing into being beings that can cause other things, i.e., material things that can cause other things to move, or material substances that can react with other substances, resulting in entirely new substances (sodium and chlorine, which become salt), etc. The kind of universe God has brought into being is a material universe in which things evolve, move, and develop. But a thing cannot move and develop unless it is brought into being by God and sustained in being by God. Thus, evolution presupposes creation. So, we think the universe is 13.6 billion years old, and the earth is 4.6 billion years old (or thereabouts). What we have today is the result of billions of years of evolution. The creation story, on the contrary, is an allegory that contains a deeper meaning besides the literal meaning. The deeper meaning being conveyed through the vehicle of the story is theological (about God, not about science or the facts of the universe). The truths communicated through the vehicle of the story is that God is the creator, God is one, God is outside of time and space (He is eternal and incorporeal), man exists in the image and likeness of God, creation is good, everything God creates is good, etc.