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Deacon Douglas McManaman

Dear __________:  I read the article you sent, as well as a couple of others on the same event (the funeral for Cecilia Gentili at St Patrick’s Basilica, NY). The problem I have with these articles is that they are too easy. The one article you sent by a professor of biblical studies contains insults, and it ends with a “finger wagging” (“Desecrating the cathedral is not the only thing they should be ashamed of”). What conservative Catholic reader of that particular journal needs to be persuaded that what happened at the Basilica in New York was a bad thing? But no one I’ve encountered so far has regarded this event as an opportunity. Allow me to explain. The writing style of a number of these articles is very much like the typical conservative political pundit. Whenever I drive to the US and listen to talk radio, I’m always struck by how polarized American society is. Those on the political left utterly demonize those on the right, but an hour or so later the left are thoroughly demonized by the right on another station. That kind of polarization characterizes many of the conservative Catholic journals as of late, especially with regard to this funeral at St. Patrick’s. 

An effective pastoral approach is very different and requires more than the intellectual virtues to be successful; those who are so busy being offended, outraged, incensed, completely miss it. A good pastor would have to be quick on his feet, for one, and he’d have to see this as an opportunity, a tremendous opportunity. The Basilica was filled with adults who have the spiritual maturity level of children; they are a broken and messed up lot, and they are all together in one place, with a priest at the front. What an opportunity to proclaim Christ and him crucified and risen, and what that means for each one of us. It would require tremendous patience, like an experienced grade school teacher would have in dealing with an out of control class of grade two kids, but many of those writing on this issue can be compared to the university professor who finds himself in front of that grade two class–they’re at a loss. And tone is everything. Anger will ruin it, finger wagging would tune everyone out. One would have to have the ability to speak to them in a way that would connect with them, appeal to their reason which, despite appearances, they have not entirely lost. It’s not about affirming their lifestyle choices, but affirming them (the person), seeing them a certain way, very much like visiting a seriously ill mental health patient–you first have to see them from God’s point of view, that is, see in them a genuine goodness and be able to mirror that goodness to them. But not everyone, certainly not every pastor, is capable of seizing the moment in this way. The default position of many conservative writers is to counter with a moralizing outrage and not to regard this as an opportunity, that is, an opportunity to proclaim Christ, the crucified and risen one who loves each one of us as if there is only one of us.

Proclaiming Christ is not the same thing as moralizing—those who reduce the gospel to personal morality miss the mark as much as those who reduce the gospel to social justice. The gospel is the good news of the resurrection, that Christ has destroyed death and restored life. These people in the Basilica are searching for that which is going to bring them rest; the problem is they think they’re going to find it in the perfect orgasm. The response of a good pastor is not to confront them with a giant “No”, but to appeal to them and get them to hear you when you tell them that behind their “yes” is a much larger and better “YES”, that what they are searching for will never be found in an intimate sexual relationship, no matter what kind it is. Cecilia Gentili was a seeker, but one with a tank full of octane and no steering wheel. She was devoted to a cause, devoted to justice, however deficient and misinformed she might have been. What was she searching for? It should be obvious. What these people are searching for but are oblivious to is right there on the first page of Augustine’s Confessions: “O Lord, You created us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” There is no doubt that each person in that Church feels the emptiness of their lifestyle choices. We can respond by showing them the door and wagging our finger, or we can think of a way to proclaim Christ. But conservative Catholicism seems to have embraced a model characteristic of American politics, and many are stuck in a “culture warrior” mentality, and with that mentality, we cannot for the life of us proclaim Christ in a way that will win anyone over. There’s no doubt the Basilica was not treated as a sacred space, but you need faith to do that, and these people don’t have that faith, which is why it was so important to take advantage of the opportunity to proclaim Christ with zeal, wit, and a profound reverence for these broken people. There’s no need to convince the rest of us that this was a bad thing that happened, but what is the point of outrage? These articles are for the most part a matter of preaching to the choir. What do they accomplish in the end? Do they help us to know how to better respond to something like that in the future?  Hardly. Often it is just some academic flexing his intellectual muscles.

Fulton Sheen believes that the reason Paul did not have much success when he preached the Areopagus sermon is that he did not preach Christ crucified. The power is in the cross, not clever zingers and pointing out logical inconsistencies and ironies. The latter approach just keeps the world divided, but the cross changes hearts and lives. 

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Also published at Where Peter is: https://wherepeteris.com/the-myth-of-the-ontological-superiority-of-the-priest/

The priest is not an angel sent from heaven. He is a man, a member of the Church, a Christian. Remaining man and Christian, he begins to speak to you the word of God. This word is not his own. No, he comes to you because God has told him to proclaim God’s word. Perhaps he has not entirely understood it himself. Perhaps he adulterates it. Perhaps he falters and stammers. How else could he speak God’s Word, ordinary man that he is? But must not some one of us say something about God, about eternal life, about the majesty of grace in our sanctified being; must not some one of us speak of sin, the judgement and mercy of God?  
Karl Rahner

Anyone familiar with Pope Francis is aware that a recurring theme of his papacy is his challenge of clericalism in its varied forms—I.e., seminarians purchasing cassocks, lace, and birettas, even well before the day of ordination, the pastor as “little monster”, the dictatorial and know-it-all posture, treating the parish as his own little kingdom, the sanctuary as stage, little sense of the priestly and consecrated role of the laity, the elite clerical boys club, etc. I often wonder whether the necessary conditions are there for some clergy in particular to understand just what it is he is talking about. Some do, but there are more than a few who have no clue. 

It would be interesting indeed to study the rise of this particular phenomenon in the Latin West, to attempt to account for the factors that gave rise to it and that make it such a difficult disease to eradicate. But one idea that I do believe might very well be a factor in the institutionalization of clericalism is the notion that the priest is ontologically superior to the faithful. 

I am going to argue that the notion of priest as ontologically superior to the rest of the faithful is a myth. The word “ontological” refers to that branch of philosophy that studies being not insofar as it is physical, or psychological, or logical, etc., but being insofar as it exists. The principles of this science are essence and existence. An animal, such as a dog or a horse, is ontologically superior to a rosebush or a watermelon. The reason is that animals have superior faculties that plants lack. A human being is ontologically superior to a brute animal; for the human person is capable of an activity that transcends sense perception, namely intellectual activity. Moreover, an angel is ontologically superior to a human being, and of course God is ontologically perfect (His nature is to exist). 

Now, the argument for the ontological superiority of the priest is grounded in the principle that agere sequitur esse, that is, action follows upon being. Activity is the realization of a potentiality or power, and we only come to understand the nature of a thing through its activity, for a being acts according to its nature: plants grow and reproduce; animals enjoy the specific powers of external and internal sensation which plants lack; human beings possess all of these but they are able to think and choose freely. At ordination, a person is given the power to transubstantiate, that is, to change ordinary bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood, an act that is outside the natural capacity of a human being as such. Hence, it is argued that the priest is ontologically different from–and superior to, since it is a superior action–those who are not priests.

But this is not quite right. For it is Christ who transubstantiates, for the priest is acting in persona Christi, and for the same reason it is Christ who forgives sins, just as it is Christ, not the charismatic healer, who heals: “Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed.” He got up at once (Acts 9, 34; cf. Ps 44, 4-9). The priest remains ontologically a human being, of the same nature as every other human being. He is ordained to a specific end, marked for that end, but he is not ontologically different, much less superior. Acting in persona Christi does not render him ontologically superior to the faithful; for he depends entirely on Christ’s action. But an ontologically superior creature does not depend on any being in order to exercise his essentially superior faculty, like sense perception, imagination, or intelligence as in the case of man. As St. Thomas points out: “…the nature of an instrument as such is to be moved by another, but not to move itself” (ST, III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 2.). The priest depends on Christ as an instrument depends on the agent in order to carry out what it was recruited to carry out. In section 1551 of the Catechism, we read: 

This priesthood is ministerial. “That office . . . which the Lord committed to the pastors of his people, is in the strict sense of the term a service.” It is entirely related to Christ and to men. It depends entirely on Christ and on his unique priesthood; it has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church. The sacrament of Holy Orders communicates a “sacred power” which is none other than that of Christ.

The language around the discussion of priesthood is instrumental and functional, and higher or lower function does not necessarily amount to ontological difference. In other words, although ontological difference implies an essentially different function, it does not follow that an essentially different function implies ontological difference (all a is b, but it does not follow that all b is a). For example, a human being can carry a heavy load and walk a number of miles down a long and winding road that requires familiarity with the terrain and an ability to reason by inference. However, he can also recruit a donkey to carry that same load for him and walk the same number of miles in the same direction, under the necessary guidance of his intelligence. The donkey does not thereby become ontologically superior to his fellow donkeys–he’s still a jackass. One could say that its actions are ennobled, for they require a faculty the animal lacks, namely the ability to inference, but properly speaking, its acts on the whole are the acts of the human being that owns, recruits, governs, and employs the donkey as an instrument. 

The charismatic healer does not know whether or how a miraculous healing has taken place, nor is she aware that she is the agent of such healing–because she isn’t the agent, but the instrument through whom Christ, the agent, heals. She simply believes that her prayer is being heard, but she cannot account for the healing. Similarly, the priest cannot in any way account for what we believe is happening on the altar (the changing of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood). He is not even aware that it has happened, because he is not the agent of the change; rather, he believes, like everyone else, that what he is distributing is in fact Christ’s body and blood. The artist knows precisely how to paint or sculpt; and she is aware of what is happening through her hands, for the work is unfolding through her own agency. But transubstantiation does not occur through the agency of the priest as such, but through the agency of Christ, just as my sins are forgiven not through the agency of the priest as such, but through Christ, whose visible instrument the priest is. The priest is no greater, ontologically speaking, than any other human being. That his unworthy hands are used by Christ is a sign of Christ’s humility, not the cleric’s supposed ontological superiority. 

It is Christ who is ontologically superior, because Christ is both human and divine, in one hypostasis, that is, one Person, the Person of God the Son. Jesus is not a human person, although he has a human nature; he is not two persons, but One, the Person of the Son. The ministerial priest is an instrument, Christ’s instrument, who in very specific situations acts not in his own person, but in the person of Christ (in persona Christi). Christ is both priest and victim in the Mass; not the ministerial priest. In other words, it is Christ who offers himself (Priest), and it is Christ who is offered (Victim). What takes place in the Mass is happening by virtue of the agency of Christ and through the instrumentality of the ministerial priest (CCC sec. 1548). 

The sacramental character conferred in Baptism and Confirmation does not “ontologically” change the baptized or the confirmand, rendering him or her ontologically superior to the unbaptized. The baptized are indeed changed, elevated, made children of God, because parent and child have the same nature, and a baptized child is filled with divine grace, which is a sharing in the divine nature. But, as Father Pieter Fransen writes: “grace sets our deepest humanity free, precisely because it restores our most authentic humanity to us and by this means humanizes us to an eminent degree” (Divine Grace and Man, 173). Later scholasticism began to give the sacramental character an ontological status, but no counsel has ever affirmed that theology. He writes:  

There is no common doctrine of the character in theology. The most restrictive definition makes it simply the impossibility of re-ordination, while the tendency to enhance it has produced a sort of complex metaphysical superstructure, due, as we think, to a very jejune theology of grace….The tendency in question has promoted a mythic theology of the priesthood which places it on a higher level of being than the rest of the faithful, a metaphysical clericalism which is responsible for barring the way to many reforms at the present time….The character is a “signum quoddam spiritale et indelebile; unde ea iterari non possunt” [a certain spiritual and indelible sign; hence they cannot be repeated] (DS 1609; cf. 1313; D 852, 695). But the scope of Trent’s definition is different from that of Florence, though the enunciation is the same. Trent was concerned above all with defending the reality of the ministry against certain reformers who wished to suppress the distinction between the community and the minister. But it would be an abuse of the text and a disregard of the intentions of the Council to take this definition as a dogmatic crystallization of scholastic speculation. (Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi. S.v. Orders and Ordination, p. 1146-1147).

The word Aquinas employs within this discussion is “deputed” (deputamur), which means to appoint, to delegate, which includes the conferral of a degree of authority. It is by these sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, and Ordination) that a person is delegated, and they are given the power to carry out what they have been delegated to carry out. 

Aquinas writes: 

The sacraments of the New Law produce a character, in so far as by them we are deputed to the worship of God according to the rite of the Christian religion. …Now the worship of God consists either in receiving Divine gifts, or in bestowing them on others. And for both these purposes some power is needed; for to bestow something on others, active power is necessary; and in order to receive, we need a passive power. Consequently, a character signifies a certain spiritual power ordained unto things pertaining to the Divine worship (ST, III, q. 63. A. 2.).

This character, whether conferred in Baptism, Confirmation, or Holy Orders, is instrumental. As Aquinas writes: “… it must be observed that this spiritual power is instrumental of the virtue which is in the sacraments. For to have a sacramental character belongs to God’s ministers: and a minister is a kind of instrument, …” (ST, III, q. 63, a. 2). Those who are marked by the sacramental character (of Baptism, Confirmation, or Holy Orders) are marked as being ordained to some particular end, as “soldiers are marked with a character as being deputed to military service”. A soldier marked with a character as being deputed to military service is changed not ontologically, but accidentally. These characters are essentially participations in Christ’s Priesthood, and so the supernatural actions made possible by them arise not from the very being or nature of the baptized, confirmand, or ordained minister, but they flow from Christ Himself: Aquinas writes: 

…each of the faithful is deputed to receive, or to bestow on others, things pertaining to the worship of God. And this, properly speaking, is the purpose of the sacramental character. Now the whole rite of the Christian religion is derived from Christ’s priesthood. Consequently, it is clear that the sacramental character is specially the character of Christ, to whose character the faithful are likened by reason of the sacramental characters, which are nothing else than certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood, flowing from Christ Himself (ST, III, q. 63, a. 3).

Again, the principal agent of the instrumental power is not the official priest. If it were, he would indeed be ontologically different and thus superior: “But an instrumental power follows rather the condition of the principal agent: and consequently a character exists in the soul in an indelible manner, not from any perfection of its own, but from the perfection of Christ’s Priesthood, from which the character flows like an instrumental power” (ST, III, q. 63, a. 5, ad. 1). 

Those who hold that the priest is ontologically superior are careful to stress that the state of priesthood does not justify clericalism. The obvious question, however, is why not? Clericalism is its logical outcome, if it were true that the rite of ordination renders him ontologically superior. The notion is fraught with dangers on all sides. There is no justification for putting in the minds of young men studying for the priesthood the notion that upon their ordination they will be rendered ontologically special, especially if we do not wish to see a return of the old clericalism. The result cannot be anything but an intolerable Phariseeism so contrary to the movement of the spiritual life, which is always a movement towards a deeper recognition that “I am no better than anyone else”. To be fair, it is argued that “better” and “ontological superiority” are distinct and that the one does not imply the other–i.e., Mary is “better”, that is, holier than the angels, who are ontologically superior. But let us grant this for the sake of argument; that would mean that although a scandalously sinful priest is ontologically superior to Mary, she is superior in her very moral identity (character), for she possesses superior holiness, superior humility and charity, and a superior place in heaven. What, then, does ontological superiority mean in the end? That he is used by Christ to make present the sacrifice of the cross? But it is far from clear how this implies a superiority that is ontological as such, especially if ontologically he is a human being, but less humanized by virtue of his sinful lifestyle (i.e., a double life, a sexual predator, etc.). If it does not indicate essential superiority, nor existential superiority, nor moral and spiritual superiority, then what does it mean? The sacramental character means that he underwent the rite of ordination, an unrepeatable rite, and has become an instrument “set apart” for a specific end. The sacramental character means, as Cardinal Louis Billot pointed out, “the right to the actual graces proper to the sacrament” (Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi. S.v. Orders and Ordination, p.1147)  

The enduring nature of the sacramental character is interesting to consider. Aquinas writes: 

Although external worship does not last after this life, yet its end remains. Consequently, after this life the character remains, both in the good as adding to their glory, and in the wicked as increasing their shame: just as the character of the military service remains in the soldiers after the victory, as the boast of the conquerors, and the disgrace of the conquered (ST, III, q. 63, a. 5, ad. 3).

It is hard to conceive how something that renders a person ontologically superior can in the end be a source of shame, for the devil is not ashamed of his ontological superiority; but it would be a source of shame in that he is not at all ontologically superior to anyone, but was freely chosen by God for a highly noble service, given the actual graces and charisms to fulfill that end, of which he fell short.  

If Aquinas is correct, it would appear then that the sacramental character does not remain qua instrument; for it endures differently in the end than it does “on the way” to the end. On the way, it is an instrumental power dependent upon Christ the agent; afterwards, it endures as an identity, like the identity of a parent which can never be erased, or the identity of a soldier long after the war is over. 

In no other case does a being, ontologically determinate (human) act in the Person of some other ontologically superior being (the Person of the Son), such that it is the latter who is acting (is the agent), not the former. Appealing to agere sequitur esse to argue for superiority leaves too much out of the discussion. In that light, I believe it is safe to conclude that there is simply no reason not to jettison this rather dubious–not to mention dangerous–idea of an alleged clerical superiority. The line that should always be at the forefront of the mind of the cleric is John the Baptist’s “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3, 30).

Or, Read this version from Where Peter Is

Deacon Doug McManaman

Recently while visiting the sick I spent some time in a section of the hospital for dementia patients waiting to be transferred to a nursing home. It is one of my favorite sections to visit. On this particular day, a group of nurses were gathered around talking to one patient with a heavy British accent, while I began to chat with an older man from Iran, using my newly downloaded google translate. Suddenly, the British lady leans over, looks at me and says “Father, do you realize how much damage your Church has done over the centuries?” Why she referred to me as “Father” is uncertain–for I was not wearing any kind of clerical attire. But I said to her: “I certainly do”. She immediately replied: “Well, I’m glad to hear you agree with me on that one”. 

I was immediately reminded of the time my priest friend asked me to speak to his RCIA group on Church history. I said I would, but that I’d have to prepare, which I did, over the Christmas holidays of that year, doing my best to include the most important aspects of that history. But I did eventually ask him: “Father, are you sure you want me to do this? There’s a lot of sin in our history; there’s no hiding it. I’m afraid I might scare someone away from becoming a Catholic”. But he insisted. 

Studying Church history can make a person dizzy, because of how often we find ourselves shaking our heads at the sin and stupidity that we find therein. And of course, things have changed, but in some ways they have not–we’ve all heard the old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Since ordination to the diaconate, I’ve been shaking my head more than I did prior to that, because I see more than I otherwise would have seen–bad behavior from clerics who should know better; nothing criminal, mind you, but rather profound immaturity, clerical envy and jealousy, inordinate need for control, a sense of self-importance, stubbornness, condescension, audacity, and an inability to engage in healthy conflict resolution, etc. I’ve always said to my students that Catholicism is not about us, it is about the Person of Christ. Unfortunately, not every cleric really believes this, at least not on a practical level. 

There is no doubt in my mind that things have improved tremendously since the 1950s and 60s, but I’ve been reading Med Kissinger’s While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence, which also gives us a peek here and there into the Church of the early 60s, and there is a great deal in this book that has me wondering once again what factors account for some of the behavior that drove so many people away from the Church. She writes:  

“My father, Bill Kissinger (we called him Holmer), sold advertising space to companies that manufactured tranquilizers and other so-called ethical pharmaceuticals to harried mothers of the baby boom. Business was brisk, especially in our North Shore Chicago neighborhood, where women, a great number of them Irish Catholics like my mother, were expected to fill the pews with as many children as they could bear, whether they had the stamina or not. “Something is definitely wrong when the best that the average American couple can do over a fertile period of twenty-five years is to give only two or three children to the Kingdom of God,” Monsignor John Knott of the National Catholic Welfare Conference said in his directive to the faithful. The Catholic Marriage Manual that my mother and her friends read religiously cautioned, “When parents consciously choose the small family as their way of life, they are expressing their ambition for material luxury as opposed to the spiritual pleasures which child rearing can give. It is no coincidence that the ‘spoiled little brat’—the selfish monster of popular fiction and newspaper comic strips—is usually an only child.””

Reflecting on the night her sister jumped in front of a train, Meg recalls her father’s fear that the bishop would not allow the family to have a funeral Mass for her or bury her in the family’s Catholic cemetery plot. She writes: “His best friend’s son had died by suicide the year before, and the family was heartbroken when the pastor refused to allow the boy’s body inside their church. On the night of Nancy’s wake, a nun from our school walked into the funeral parlor, pointed to my sister’s casket and croaked, “She’s going to Hell, you know.”” (When my siblings died by suicide, the church failed us. Now, it’s finally listening).

Thankfully, very few clerics think or talk like this anymore. Nonetheless, one has to wonder what it is that accounts for such audacity, such overconfident boldness that has not entirely disappeared. I know enough about investigative reasoning to know that the causes are far too complex to be reduced to a single factor, but I can think of two factors that are an integral part of the equation. The first is prosperity. Human beings are at their moral worst in times of prosperity. We see this repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, as well as in the history of any nation. When times are prosperous, we gradually become cocky, ungrateful, and we forget the limitations that constrain us, both moral and cognitive. The 1950s and 60s were a very prosperous time in the Church’s history. On the other hand, human beings, individually and collectively, are at their best in times of suffering, difficulty, and adversity. Perhaps things are somewhat better today because for the Church at least, times are not as prosperous. Difficulties, adversity, struggles, persecution, conflict, etc., cause a person to face his or her own limitations, the limits of his patience, the limits of his own knowledge and ability to acquire knowledge, his moral limitations and the delusions he’s harbored about himself over the years, his limited ability to relate to others in a way that does not put them off, etc., and so the easier life is, the less likely it is that a person will acquire the skills to be a perceptive, prudent, and compassionate pastor who relates well to the average person, especially those not so well off financially or psychologically.

The other factor is ignorance. There is not a great deal that can be done about this, because all of us suffer from deficient information. There is always so much we don’t know at each moment of our existence, and this was especially the case in the 1950s and 60s when it came to mental illness, among many other things. And so, although there isn’t much we can do about the fact that we are always information deficient, a deeper appreciation for the tentative nature of truth and the difficulties of acquiring knowledge can help us to learn to speak with less of a rhetoric of certainty and confidence. As Bertrand Russell once said: “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt”. A more updated epistemology and an appreciation for plausibility theory will go a long way to help young clerics not to fall into the same mistakes that were made decades earlier, when it was much easier to believe that one’s understanding of the world was far more comprehensive than it actually was in reality. The fact is our grasp on things is tiny and narrow, for our conclusions are formed on the basis of very limited data, but everyday brings new experiences that translate into new data, which, if we are reflective enough, cause us to make revisions to the views we held onto at one time. When we become more explicitly aware of how often this happens, it is much easier to see that there is a significant difference between speaking in a spirit of fearlessness, which is rooted in perfect love and humility (1 Jn, 4, 18), and audacity rooted in a condescending spirit made possible by an inordinately comfortable existence with very little opposition.

It should also be said that there is a glorious thread running through our history, and that is the history of the lives of the saints. But these are who they are in part by virtue of great suffering. When we immerse ourselves in this history, our head indeed spins, but with exhilaration and inspiration. In short, ours is a fully inclusive Church in that it contains saints and sinners, and everything else in between. 

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_403homily1.29.2024ordinarytime4.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

It was very difficult to discern an underlying thread in the readings for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, so I will settle upon making just two points. The first point bears upon the second reading taken from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7: “Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction” (32-35). Because it is a small portion of the entire chapter, taken out of its larger context, it is very easy to misinterpret; one can easily come away with the impression that the celibate life or the consecrated life is genuinely religious, while the married state is not. Such an interpretation, however, would be contrary to Paul’s overall teaching on marriage, not to mention all the developments in the theology of marriage over the centuries, especially the more recent theology of the body of Pope John Paul II. In the larger context of this chapter, we see that Paul believes we are in the last period of salvation history. He refers to his own time as a time of distress, which in apocalyptic literature, is said to precede the time of the Second Coming of Christ. Paul writes: “So this is what I think best because of the present distress: that it is a good thing for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife…. I tell you, brothers, the time is running out” (26-27; 29). What he says about those who are married and those who are not must be read in this context, otherwise we come away with the impression that marriage has nothing to do with serving the Lord. And of course, that would contradict what Paul teaches in his letter to the Ephesians, where he speaks of marriage as a sign of the love that Christ has for his Bride, the Church. 

Christ’s love for his Bride is a conjugal love, and the love of a baptized husband for his baptized wife is that very same love, and vice versa. This is what we try to get across to couples in Marriage Prep classes, namely, that marriage is just as religious a vocation as is the priesthood and consecrated life. It hasn’t always been understood that way, unfortunately, due to a kind of clericalism that Pope Francis has spoken out against so often in his papacy. But marriage is a sacrament, a sacred sign that contains what it signifies, and it signifies the paschal mystery. For just as God called Abraham to leave the land of Ur and go to the land that He will lead him to, and just as God called Israel to leave Egypt behind with its pantheon of false gods, and just as Jesus leaves this world behind in order to go to the Father (Jn 17), so too in matrimony, two people are called to leave behind a world closed in upon itself; they are consecrated, that is, set apart, for they are called to leave behind their comfortable world of independence and self-sufficiency, to be given over to another, to belong completely to one another, in order to become part of something larger than their own individual selves, namely, the one flesh institution that is their marriage. The couple relinquish their individual lives; they are no longer two individuals with their own independent existence; rather, they have become one body, a symbol of the Church, who is one body with Christ the Bridegroom. The lives of a married couple are a witness of the Church’s response to Christ’s love for his Bride; they witness that love in their sacrificial love for one another, and for the children who are the fruit of that marriage–and raising children well demands a tremendously sacrificial love. In giving themselves irrevocably and exclusively to one another, without knowing what lies ahead, a young couple die to their own individual plans, they die to a life directed by their own individual wills. In doing so, they find life; for they have become a larger reality. 

The second point I’d like to make has to do with the Authority of Christ in the gospels: the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. I am reminded of a former principal of mine. She retired, but she has been called a number of times to take over a few schools when the principal was off for whatever reason. I know the staff morale at one school in particular was quite low, due to a lack of good leadership, which students perceive quite readily. My friend was called to that school to take over for a few weeks. I asked a former colleague at that school: “How did the students receive her?” My colleague replied: “Instant respect”. And this is just what I expected; she walks and talks with authority. But what does that mean exactly? It means she is a person that the students respect, because she is respectable. Just having a position of authority does not mean a person speaks or acts with authority; most people in positions of authority today, including ecclesiastical positions of authority, have very little authority; they’ve lost a great deal of their credibility and moral authority. Authority comes from within; it has to do with the kind of person that you are, and young people can discern rather quickly what kind of person that is. Authority comes from a spirit of charity, holiness, humility, and perfect love casts out all fear, so it involves a spirit of fearlessness, which is very different from a spirit of audacity or boldness. Boldness is rooted in arrogance, in a condescending spirit, but fearlessness is rooted in holiness and charity. The holier a person is, the greater is their authority, and it is an authority that others recognize. And by holy I do not mean sanctimonious. Jesus was the “Holy One of God”, the Scribes and the Pharisees were not holy, which is why they taught without authority. They were sanctimonious, that is, hypocrites, which in Greek means “actor”. For them it was about appearances and having others fawn all over them, lording it over others, but as Christ said, they neglected the poor and the suffering. The demons were terrified of Christ because he came with the authority of God the Son, who humbled himself and came among us, to deliver us from the Satan’s dominion. The more we grow in true holiness, in the power of charity and humility, the more we will be empowered by his authority. 

Homily for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

Deacon Doug McManaman
https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_402marytheotokos.html

As I was going over the gospel reading (Lk 2:16-21), I was struck by one thing in particular, namely, Mary says nothing. She just listens. She listens to the Shepherds, who “made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

Mary was one of those who was amazed at what had been told by the Shepherds. You would think that the Mother of God would be the one with the words to amaze them, to enlighten them, that she would be one or two steps ahead of them such that their message would be superfluous. But this is not the case. The good news was told to the shepherds, and what was proclaimed to them was proclaimed to the one who conceived the good news himself, in her womb. She was not eager to speak; rather she listens, and ponders all that was said to her, reflecting on them. 

Mary is theotokos, which means “God-bearer”. And our purpose in this life is to become a theotokos, a God-bearer. And we know through Mary’s example what it means to be a theotokos, at least in part. It means first and foremost to be full of God, pregnant with God. The result of bearing the mystery of God within is that we become disposed to listen; we become disposed to ponder, to reflect upon what is happening both within us and around us. When we are filled with God within, everything around us appears in a new light. The world becomes more beautiful and mysterious. 

Everything is subject to the providence of God, but the entire meaning of the events of providence, all that God permits to happen in this world, is always beyond us. Our understanding of what is going on in our world is always deficient; there’s always more to know. I am generally wary of people who offer grand and comprehensive explanations of the state of the world in which we are living, because this world is just far too large and complex for us to understand adequately as a whole. But this point is hard to appreciate when we are young. Everything seems clear when we are young, and the result is we tend to speak a lot, and we speak with a rhetoric of confidence. But as time goes on, experience provides us with much more information, and that new information allows us to see that things were not as simple as they once appeared–but this will happen to the degree that we are silent and reflective, and we will only be silent and reflective to the degree that we allow ourselves to become a theotokos, a God bearer.  

The life of John the Baptist holds some clues as to what it means to become what we are called to become, namely a theotokos. He refers to himself as the best man at a wedding, “who stands and listens to the bridegroom, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice”. The bridegroom of course is Christ. John says: “This joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase, I must decrease”. This life is about learning to listen to Christ the Bridegroom and getting to that point where his voice becomes our joy. And that joy moves us to want to decrease so that he may increase. We no longer want to increase in the eyes of others. Our joy, our deepest desire, is that he, Christ himself, increase—and that we get out of the way. 

But it all begins when we learn to listen to the Lord who dwells in our deepest interior. And that’s the highest kind of prayer: the prayer of quiet listening to God. Not saying anything. Just adoring the Lord in silence. The Lord that we adore is the Word, the Logos. The Word eternally spoken by the Father is noiseless; it is full and inexhaustible, because the Word is everything that the Father can say about himself. That spoken Word, uttered eternally, is silent, and that silence speaks and is inexhaustible in content. The highest kind of prayer is listening to the Father’s silent Word, and listening to the Word breathe his eternal love for the Father. 

This may sound rather easy, but it is very difficult to get to this point in our prayer life; for there are many distractions that occur when we spend time, in the presence of God, in silence. Our mind is like an untrained dog that pulls this way and that. But when this happens, all we have to do is bring ourselves back to the presence of God and leave these thoughts behind. 

This kind of prayer brings real joy and healing to the unconscious mind, because many of the thoughts that come to the surface during this time of silence are often unhealed memories that have been stored in the subconscious. Learning to leave them behind eventually brings about profound healing and peace. 

As I mentioned last week, for those who do not have an interior life, who have not cultivated the habit of prayer throughout their lives, old age will slowly and inevitably become a very unpleasant ordeal, for our ability to cover up our own spiritual emptiness becomes increasingly difficult as the body deteriorates and circumstances change. But for those who have a rich interior life, those who pray and who know the joy of the Bridegroom’s voice, who know the rich and subtle joy of hearing that eternal silence of the Word, growing old only creates the conditions for this joy to increase.

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_401homosexualitydemands.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

Many of the articles coming out against Fiducia Supplicans are interesting to read, but most of them seem to assume the point the author needs to prove in the first place–the fallacy of begging the question. Moreover, what they all seem to have in common is a complaint of ambiguity. I am going to argue that when dealing with pastoral matters, ambiguity is inevitable. The reason is that the more general the level of discussion, the greater the clarity; but as one moves towards a more concrete or less abstract level of discourse, things become rather murky, because they have become more complicated. 

This is a basic philosophical principle. For example, I can estimate the height of the tree in my neighbor’s front yard: between 1 inch and 300 meters. That estimate enjoys the benefit of absolute certainty. I can estimate the price of the house that’s for sale across the street: I’d say it is between $100 and 10 million. Very broad, very general, but certain. My estimates, however, are also relatively useless; they are useless to a tree cutter (in terms of what tools he’s going to need), and they are useless to a potential buyer of the house. To make the estimates more useful, I have to become more precise. However, there is a trade-off; the greater the precision, the more vulnerable to error my estimates become. So, let me say that the house across the street is $950,000. That’s a more useful estimate, but it is much less certain, for it is more vulnerable to error—the house may just as well be $900,000, or $875,000, etc.

We have a great deal of clarity in the Church when it comes to certain theological and moral questions, but pastoral questions bearing upon individual persons are full of ambiguity, unlike general moral questions like abortion or euthanasia. The Church is clear that sexual activity outside of marriage, that is, sexual activity that is not an expression of marital union, is morally deficient. It’s not terribly difficult to show that. But that really doesn’t help me much when I am dealing with someone struggling with loneliness, sexual passion, self-acceptance, addictive propensities, doubts about faith, etc. It’s not enough to simply say: “Sex between two people of the same sex is a sin! Can’t bless sin!  Have a good day!” 

There is a myriad of factors outside of a free-will that account for a person’s character traits, foibles and idiosyncrasies, factors that mitigate a person’s degree of responsibility and which demand from a counselor a certain course of action, tone of voice, things to say and not say, etc., and a good pastor must be able to intuit this rapidly. It is supernatural charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as counsel, as well as the charism of discernment, that enable him to achieve this to some degree. Adults should have far more patience and typically provide more room for error for children than for their fellow adults. Similarly in the spiritual life, but very few adults have reached spiritual adulthood, and a pastor who consistently fails in such discernment and treats a person accordingly gives rise to needless suffering and conflict, like a bad parent would. 

The spiritual life of a person is a movement, a process, and a good pastor is in many ways like a good teacher who is able to determine students’ various learning styles and the level at which they currently operate, in order to begin at that point. The problem with education in former times was that this preliminary determination was for the most part neglected; for it was assumed that everyone learns the same way, so those who fell behind were simply regarded as less intelligent–these latter were left to deal with confusing and painful emotions to which this isolating state of affairs gave rise. All such students really needed were teachers who understood that not everyone learns the same way, at the same pace, nor begins with the necessary conditions for success at the expected time. Teaching is an art, and so too is the work of a genuine pastor, and it requires much more than the knowledge of general principles.

There are priests–and Pope Francis is fully aware of this–who have as much pastoral sense as a monkey wrench and seem to think pastoral counsel is all about issues, doctrine, teachings, sections of the Catechism, etc., and that once we have clear answers to general moral questions, dealing with people is a straightforward and easy matter. But life is full of ambiguity, precisely because it is so complex. Papal critics are demanding certainty and lucidity on a level at which certainty and lucidity are not possible. Fiducia is without a doubt vulnerable to abuse and misinterpretation, because the discussion takes place on a lower level of abstraction, as pastoral questions always do. But there’s no getting away from that. I bless prospective married couples all the time, most of whom are living together. Am I blessing their sin? No. Am I condoning their living together? No. Should I pry into their lives to get details regarding their living arrangements, before giving them a blessing? No. If two men or two women approach me for a blessing, I have to be able to determine what it is they want from me, without prying, without turning them off completely, and I have to make them feel welcome, etc. If I know they are gay, do I assume they are having sex? Perhaps it is more likely than not, but I don’t think I should assume anything; for there are chaste gay couples whose relationships are not principally about sex. And what do I say in my prayer of blessing? I can ask the Lord to grant them the grace to live in a way that is pleasing to God, among other things. Fiducia is clear that this should not take place in a liturgical or formal setting, since that would lend the impression that we see this as akin to marriage, and we do not. So, what should we do when two people of the same sex approach for a blessing? Do we just say no? It seems to me that a good pastoral approach will for the most part consist in blessing both persons, blessing their friendship, their commitment to one another, calling upon God to impart to them the grace to want to do what God wants them to do, and leave it at that.

A Church that operates on a very general level in order to avoid ambiguity becomes relatively useless (like the useless estimates of the tree height or housing prices). If the Church is to become more useful to the faithful in the modern world, ready to deal with new matters that are of importance to people today, she’ll have to take risks and pronounce on such matters, knowing that given the ambiguity that is part and parcel of this level of discussion, her teaching will be subject to abuse and misinterpretation, sort of like the aftermath of Vatican II. We are dealing here with a trade-off. Would it have been better had the Second Vatican Council not happened, keeping things “simple, clear and unambiguous” as things apparently were prior to 1962? Many traditionalists think so, but how can we know what the Church today would look like had that been the case? Perhaps society would be paying as much attention to the Catholic Church as they do now to the Amish. 

There is no doubt that there are legitimate arguments on all sides of this debate, but I always thought there is an advantage to being a Catholic–we don’t have to spend our days studying all the arguments to determine the right course of action, for we have a Magisterium that has a teaching charism and we are called to be loyal to the Holy Father:

This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra, in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and that one sincerely adhere to the decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which. a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated. (LG 25)

Many liberal Catholic moralists had no use for this section of the Lumen Gentium; today it seems the tables have turned–it is conservatives who seem to be tossing this out the window when the Pope begins to take us down a road that is new and uncomfortable. I’ve been told that obedience is the hardest counsel of the three, and rightly so. Bishops typically demand obedience and deference from the faithful and their priests, but how can those who have shown anything but loyal submission of mind and heart in recent months evade the charge of hypocrisy? They can dissent, but I can’t? 

I’ve been asked how necessary Fiducia was at this time, that is, just before Christmas (2023). I have no idea, but how necessary is all this fuss about it? I have faithfully taught Catholic sexual ethics for close to 40 years, but I don’t particularly understand the current preoccupation with this issue. I’m not gay, and so I don’t see things from that perspective, but if I were gay and trying to be a faithful Catholic, I might be rejoicing over this document and might take it as a great Christmas gift. Basically, I have to trust that the Holy Father has the charism of office and is moved by the Holy Spirit to address what needs to be addressed in this highly complex world whose complexity escapes the comprehension of any individual as such, including an individual pope–which is precisely why he requires a charism that I simply don’t have. 

(400th article on Lifeissues.net)

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_400praywithoutceasing.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

We’ve heard so much recently about Advent being a preparation for the Second Coming of Christ, and the readings throughout the season certainly reflect that. But how do we prepare for Christ’s Second Coming? What is Advent preparation? The answer to that question is in the Second Reading, in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks.”

How does one do that? How do we pray without ceasing? We understand what it means to pray before Mass, or pray before meals, or pray before we go to bed, but how does one pray without ceasing? The great spiritual classic The Way of a Pilgrim, written by an unknown 19th century Russian peasant, tackles that very question. This work focuses on the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. Those in the Eastern rite say this repeatedly using a prayer rope, which is like a rosary, but it has 100 or 200 knots, some have 300 knots. Obviously, one cannot be constantly saying that prayer, when we are talking to someone, or in a meeting, or working on some project, etc. So how does this work? The purpose behind this constant repetition of that prayer is to create a habit in the soul, a disposition. Let me compare it to someone who has a musical disposition; those who are musically gifted almost always have a song playing in the back of their minds, perhaps a song they’ve heard on the radio, or a song they’re working on, if they are musicians. The song is not at the forefront of their minds, but at the back.

Similarly, to pray without ceasing is to pray in the back of one’s mind, constantly. A proclivity to prayer has been developed as a result of the constant repetition of this prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. But the same thing can occur for those who pray the rosary very often. What happens is that eventually the actual words are no longer necessary because the very meaning that the words express have become a habit imprinted in the subconscious, and so although the mind may be preoccupied with some matter, such as paying a phone bill or shopping or taking an important phone call, the soul is praying in the background, without words, like a candle that is burning constantly. That’s when we have begun to pray without ceasing. We begin with words, but eventually we go beyond words.

There are different kinds of prayer: the prayer of petition, prayer of intercession, prayer of thanksgiving, prayer of praise, and prayer of adoration. The highest kind of prayer that each one of us is called to achieve is the prayer of adoration. In the words of Father Gerald Vann, this is the “prayer of wonder: the still, wordless gaze of Adoration, which is proper to the lover. You are not talking, not busy, not worried or agitated; you’re not asking for anything: you are quiet, you are just being with, and there is love and wonder in your heart.”

This prayer is much more difficult than we might tend to believe. It is about placing oneself in the presence of God, in silence, focusing all our attention on God. This is difficult, because what soon happens is that we are distracted by all kinds of thoughts, and our attention will be pulled this way and that way, without our being aware of it. Once we do become aware of it, however, we just have to refocus our attention on God, dwelling in his presence. But, within a minute, the mind will be drawn away again, distracted by thoughts. This is where short prayers are so important and helpful, like the Jesus prayer, or a short phrase from the psalms, like “God come to my assistance, Lord make haste to help me”, or “Into your hands I commend my spirit”. These short phrases repeated will help us to return to that interior dwelling place within. With constant practice, one eventually is able to dwell in silence, in the presence of God within, for a long time without distraction. This is also a kind of prayer that brings tremendous healing to the subconscious. Many of the thoughts that come to the surface during this time are often unhealed memories that have been stored in the subconscious, and learning to leave them behind brings about profound healing and peace; for much of our day to day lives is driven by these unhealed memories in the unconscious, which is why there is typically a great deal of turmoil in the interior lives of the faithful. 

There are two types of people in this world: those who believe that this life is a preparation for eternal life, and those who believe that this life is all there is and that everything we do is only a preparation for life in this world. I’ve seen a lot of people in the hospital these past few months, people who have lost their mobility, who have had to spend months in a hospital bed, many of whom died after a long period, especially within these past 3 weeks. For those who do not have an interior life, who have not cultivated the habit of prayer throughout their lives, these final years and months are often very painful, very unpleasant, which is why euthanasia is becoming more popular. But those who have a rich interior life, those who have used the time in their lives to prepare for eternal life by learning to pray without ceasing, their final months or years, perhaps in a hospital bed, are not unbearable, and visiting these people is often a joy, because there is a deeper peace within them, and they are thankful. And the wonderful thing about them is that they are not asking to be euthanized. Instead of making their final act an act of rebellion and murder, their death becomes their final prayer, a final offering, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for all they’ve received throughout their lives.