A Love for ‘Orthodox – Catholic Unity’
Metropolitan Zizioulas talks about the isolation of the Russian Orthodox Church who, in name of tradition, finds itself unable to face the modern world.
By NAT da Polis
7/7/2008
Asia News (www.asianews.it/)
ROME (AsiaNews) – A great love for Catholic-Orthodox unity as the only way to face the challenges of the modern world and a profound sadness for the self-imposed isolation of the Russian Orthodox Church are the main points Ecumenical Greek-Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I raised in his address to the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
They are also the main thrust in Metropolitan of Pergamon Ioannis Zizioulas comments to AsiaNews about the patriarch’s speech.
For the latter the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church is one of conservatism, showing an inability to meet the challenges of the modern world.
Bartholomew I was invited to Rome for the 90th anniversary of the Institute, an institution that includes the well-known Faculties of Eastern Church Studies and Eastern Canon Law.
The Patriarch spoke about what the Orthodox Church expects from this institution as service to the contemporary world. In his inaugural lecture titled “Theology, Liturgy, and Silence: Fundamental Insights from the Eastern Fathers for the Modern World”, he stressed the importance to the theology of the great Fathers of the Church, those of the united Church of the first millennium, whose spirit lives on as a solid basis for the document elaborated in Ravenna, which is the Sister Churches response to the challenges of the contemporary world.
What word of salvation can the Eastern Church’s theology bring to the modern world? To this initial question, Bartholomew answered by starting with Patristic theology, explaining that such a theology cannot be reduced to a structured system of truth, but is on the contrary the light and grace of the Holy Spirit which gives life to the whole Church and thus rejuvenates the entire world.
A theology that is cut off from Church and society is a sterile study of doctrinal formulations, rather than a deifying vision of conviction and commitment, capable of transforming the whole world.
During the Age of Byzantium, so reviled because misunderstood, when religious life encompassed every aspect of secular life, “when [t]heological culture embraced every aspect,” he said, “every manifestation, activity, institution, intuition, and literary achievement in Byzantine society [. . .] the Church Fathers were primarily pastors, not philosophers.”
“They were concerned first with reforming the human heart and transforming society, not with refining concepts or resolving controversies. For the patriarch the fundamental aspects of Patristic thought can enlighten theology in the modem age.”
Liturgy
First of all, the Fathers of the Church never saw theology as a monopoly of the professional academic or the official hierarchy. “Theology,” Bartholomew I noted, “was a communal experience or as St Paul put it, a way to bring to light [for all] what is the plan of the mystery hidden from ages past in God (Eph, 3:9).”
Again this background it is the Church which guarantees the Apostolic Ages normative continuity, from Patristic times till now. And when the Church prays as a liturgical assembly it is truly itself.
Thanks to this liturgical aspect Eastern Christians were given courage under the Ottoman Empire and more recently under post-Revolutionary Russia. This profound sense of community must, therefore, also characterize our theological perception of the world today. This means that no individual can ever exhaust the fullness of truth in isolation from others, outside the communion of saints.
The Patriarch also spoke about Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. With regard to fraternal relations among our Sister Churches, “[if] the two lungs of the Eastern and Western Churches [. . .] must breathe in harmony, [n]either should assume provocative initiatives – whether unilaterally or universally – in its ministry to God’s people.”
“Finally, [w]e urge you to serve the theological word by breathing the air of theology and kneeling humbly before the living Creator,” Bartholomew said, invitng the Pontifical Oriental Institute to play a decisive role in the rapprochement between the East and the West.
Russian Orthodoxy’s insularity
The Metropolitan of Pergamon Ioannis Zizioulas, an eminent Orthodox theologian, spoke with AsiaNews about the difficult ecumenical path with the Russian Orthodox Church.
This comes just a day after a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate advised Orthodox believers not to pray with members of other Christian confessions.
In the Eastern Church, especially in the Russian Church, there is a degree of insularity that leads to conservatism. There is an inability to face the challenges of the modern world, with tradition as an excuse, Metropolitan Ioannis said.
The prelate, who accompanied the Patriarch Bartholomew to Rome where he met Benedict XVI today, said that the true value of tradition is only reached when we can reshape our tradition. Tradition as the Christian Churchs message does not mean doing nothing; instead it contains truths momentum and does not fear the challenge of the contemporary world.
In Ravenna (Italy) last October the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church resumed its work even though there were no representatives from the Moscow Patriarchate. The latter chose not to attend because of the presence of representatives of the Estonian Orthodox Church which Moscow does not recognise.
Eirenikon 
In a word, Greek papalism. Remeinds me of the ant seeking to attack the elephant!
Forgive my ignorance, but it never ceases to amaze me that Constantinople is almost always presented as having all of the schemes and pretensions but not Moscow. Agreed, the EP’s claims to primacy in the Orthodox world are not very impressive. I concede the existence of “Greek papalism”. But, really, is there no such thing as “Muscovite papalism” – i.e. Moscow attempting to assume the de facto leadership of the Orthodox world (something, by the way, that’s been going on for quite some time). The ant and the elephant, indeed!
I second EE’s comment. I think the elephant is a little too keen on smashing ants.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so easy to level charges at the Ecumenical Patriarch were he to seek unity first with his Orthodox brethren and not with the “other lung.” Unity with Catholicism but not unity within Orthodoxy, especially given the tragic divisions caused in the twentieth century by the Calendar controversy, among others?
This Roman Catholic who loves Orthodoxy is made quite uneasy by Metropolitan Zizioulas’ fighting words against the ROC. It will only harm the process if the Ecumenical Patriarchate gives the appearance of forming some power-grabbing axis with Rome against its sister Orthodox Churches. Bishop Hilarion of Vienna has already spoken quite positively and eloquently about a strategic alliance with Rome in our common battle against Euro relativism and secularism. Isn’t that progress enough for now? Better it seems to err on the side of prudence, caution, and crockpot slow-cooking, which the ROC seems to be advocating. I also don’t want to see any more freebie missteps that can be spun by hardliners to fuel yet more unnecessary animosity in the Orthodox world against the Catholic Church.
I thnk we need to let the post-Soviet Orthodox Churches get their sea legs again before pressing them too hard on the ecumenism front. Otherwise, it could easily spark a circling of the wagons which could set unity back another few centuries. The Western Church already failed to speak up for the Serbian Orthodox Church when the Western powers mindlessly endorsed Kosovo’s independence as a de facto Muslim nation. I’d be a little insular and distrustful of the West right now too if I were in their shoes.
There is such a thing as muscovite papalism, and many of us who consistently believe that the MP is correct and the EP incorrect in recent matters are a bit concerned that the MP is getting too singular a role in world Orthodoxy. But that role is only strengthened by the depths of incompetence the EP continually plunges.
“the only way to face the challenges of the modern world…”
The irony here is that it is the MP that, time and again, has spoken directly to the modern world. The MP has been much more clear (and much closer to the RCC) on bioethical matters than the EP. The MP has issued statements on family planning, on Orthodox using the Internet, on Orthodox use of mass media, on proper Orthodox family structures, on Orthodox engagement in economic matters, on pornography, and on a host of other such things. In this regard the MP has been far more specific and reveals far more of an awareness of the modern situation than does the EP. Indeed, it is the MP together with the RCC that could actually address secularism in Europe as a whole (and we have seen some yearnings for this on both sides). The EP is the last place the RCC should go for an ally in that regard.
And here again, if I may, something vital for RC ecumenism fans should be pointed out. The Orthodox you so love would not be, if you are faithful to your own magisterium, your allies in your own ecclesial battles in your own Church. The EP has made essentially pro-choice statements before (see pages 2 and 3 here: http://www.oclife.org/vnine.pdf). When I ask Orthodox who support his “engagement with the modern world” what exactly they mean by that, they always bring up one issue, the environment. Folks, I am as opposed to the destruction of the earth and to gratuitous consumption as anyone – but I have read every statement of the EP’s published in English on environmental matters and from my reading he rarely rises above popular green cliché, and keeps his points comfortably vague. Fr. Tobias (of Second Terrace) has written recently that during his last trip to Constantinople he heard an awful lot of EUspeak at an EP conference. The EP is desperate for survival. It will ally itself to the EU, and be as nice to Rome as it can be without rocking the Orthodox boat too much – thus we get decent comments which deny VatI in something like a normal Orthodox manner, such as “neither should assume provocative initiatives – whether unilaterally or universally” but we get this in the rhetorical context of the more vague two-lung language.
Really, does anyone here think that the Russian Church “fears the challenge of the contemporary world?” Am I alone in seeing the sad and rather pathetic state of things when such a statement is made by a representative of a See which is virtually extinct and currently functions primarily as a pop-media public relations apparatus for itself? Does not fearing the contemporary world mean learning to speak EU blather? Does it mean that “We are not allowed to enter the bedrooms of the Christian couples… There are many reasons for a couple to go toward abortion” as the EP told the San Francisco Chronicle before he was EP? Does it mean that we have to engage Heidegger and Levinas in our ecclesiology, as Zizioulas has (many folks think of David B. Hart as the sort of Orthodox who does not fear the challenges of the contemporary world, and he demolishes Levinas in his work)? Why it is that we would accept this rhetoric that it is the MP that is full of fear, and the EP that is, I guess, so hopeful?
It seems to me just to be another instance of a common slight these days. Label any restraint from one’s agenda as fear based. Cute.
L.T., you make excellent and persuasive points. But isn’t the Kosovo situation perhaps a tad more complicated than you suggest? And doesn’t relatively recent Russian history give many Westerners (not just Catholics) legitimate cause for concern over the Putin-Alexy axis? (IOW, I’m not sure it’s the EP or Rome-Constantinople rapproachement that’s spurring the Russian power-grab!)
My friend Doc Och, you are right to raise the issue of abortion and to cite the EP’s remarks thereupon. I would hope that the EP no longer subscribes to such a view, but, if he still does, ten this is indeed matter for concern.
But is the EP’s attitude limited to himself or to Greek Orthodoxy? Recently I have been shocked to see several OCA folks (at another forum) avidly endorse Obama, dismiss all concerns about his extreme pro-abort stance, and even gush that he “is secretly Orthodox.” Yes, I know, you can find similarly addled Catholics…but they are the subject of intense controversy right now in the Catholic blogosphere; one of them has rather famously been denied Communion; and everyone seems to sense that they are on a collision course with Church Teaching. Where is similar outrage over these OCA Obamaniacs? Do pro-life issues matter as much in the OCA as they do in the Catholic Church?
Everyone knows where the Catholic Church stands on abortion. Does everyone know where the OCA (or the Russian Orthodox) stand? I for one would be glad to be enlightened re this.
Sorry for diverting the thread topic. This is something that’s been preying on my mind lately. It scares me the way so many Christians seem ready to overlook Obama’s rigid pro-abort views.
Diane,
The OCA has issued clear statements regarding bioethical issues, including abortion. Metropolitan Herman, for all of his other issues, is unquestionably and unapologetically pro-life, in the fuller sense of that term. The Russian Church, and here I mean the MP, has issued statements regarding abortion which you would find yourself in agreement with. There is a booklet (in English translation) which Light & Life publishing sells (I am away from my copy of their catalog at the moment, and cannot quickly find it on their site) that is put out by the MP and deals with a host of “contemporary” moral issues. One can also read the English version of the MP’s site and get a sense of their unequivocal pro-life position. I would go so far as to say that the Russian tradition offers as pro-life a discipline as one can find anywhere. In one Russian book on preparation for confession which I was reading recently, the author, a monk, cautioned husbands with pregnant wives not to have marital relations with their wives while their wives are pregnant because if she were to miscarry after having intercourse the husband could be guilty of murder. While that instance is not necessarily an official position of the MP (as far as I know) it is in keeping with the seriousness with which Slavic Christians (of all stripes, Orthodox and Eastern Catholic) have generally treated life within the womb.
In North America, it is unusual to find ROCOR and MP parishes or devout laypersons who dissent on abortion, though there are, of course, a few.
Within the OCA, particularly in a few dioceses, there is no shortage of persons who espouse “politically” pro-choice views, despite the writings of their Holy Synod on the matter. That the OCA Holy Synod is in such a mess right now only encourages, I suppose, some folks to disregard the Synods clear teaching on these matters.
But as to how all of this relates to the current election, I do not know. I do not wish to get too off topic here, but it seems to me to be somewhat complicated. The canons of the Church are clear with regard to what abortion is and the gravity of aiding such an act. But the canons are clear on many other matters. For instance, there are penances given for killing other combatants in an act of warfare. There are very different penances given for killing non-combatant women and children. Obama supports infanticide. McCain blanket bombed North Vietnam and is proud of it. Contemporary military tactical methods will necessarily, at times, kill women and children, as we have seen even with our smart bombs in Iraq (my brother is an Air Force weapons specialist, he assures me our smart bombs are not that smart). Even with a stated intent to reduce collateral damage (which sounds a lot like pro-choicers who want to reduce the number of abortions), we have a method that, it seems to me, the early canons would never allow our participation in or aid of. Thus Obama supports that which I am not allowed to aid, and McCain supports that which I am not allowed to aid. There is the temptation to compare the number of abortion deaths to the number of warfare collateral non-combatant deaths, but then we are attempting to quantify evil, when it is all just wrong.
Thus we have on one side McCain, a mass technowar-monger, a supporter of the destruction of human embryos, a supporter of easy access to contraception, including abortificient contraception – all gravely evil things. On the other side we have our “yes, we can” infanticidist. This reflection is not meant to defend those who support Obama but to ask, how in any way do we engage this political mess as traditional Christians? I am not convinced that it is as simple as picking the guy who is more pro-life than the other guy (and I here am not meaning to suggest that you see it that simply either).
Och, I realize that it is complicated, and I don’t think McCain is any prize, believe me. But, as a Catholic, I do believe that abortion trumps other issues. By far. However one feels about the Iraq War, its death toll pales in comparison with the death toll from abortion. Moreover, the lives taken by abortion are entirely innocent, defenseless lives–thre’s not a terrorist or insurgent in the lot.
Moreover, as Obama has never seen an abortion he doesn’t like–he’s even left of Hillary Clinton on this issue–for me, it’s a no-brainer: McCain is the lesser of two evils.
The U.S. bishops have issued voter guidelines which give weight to other issues but which clearly state that abortion is by far the biggest issue, for the reasons I have cited, among others.
In my discussions with pro-Obama Christians (including Catholics), I am frequently told that the GOP has done nothing to end abortions, that Bush has done nothing, and that McCain will do nothing, so it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. But there’s one big problem with this argument: SCOTUS. The next president will likely be responsible for appointing several Supreme Court justices…and, in the battle for life, that will make all the difference in the world. Can you imagine what sort of justices Obama would appoint? Any hope of getting Roe overturned and sending the issue back to the states would disappear for the foreseeable future.
I agree that this is getting a tad too off-topic…perhaps we’d better continue it offline. :)
The bottom line, though, is that I can’t see how any truly pro-life Christian can vote for Obama. And the major pro-life organizations seem to agree with me!
Hear, hear, Ochlophobist! When one complains about an “inability to face the challenges of the modern world,” you should be very suspicious that the speaker means, “yield to the modern world.” And how does one face the challenge of abortion or deconstructing marriage? What engagement other than “no” is appropriate? In fact, the experience of other Christian communities shows that any more engagement than this leads, inevitably, to the glorification of the modern world, not its correction.
Phil, I would very respectfully suggest that “engaging the challenges of the modern world” means something very, very different from “capitulating to the Zeitgeist.” Google Pope John Paul II & the Cairo Conference to see what I mean. Or google Evangelium Vitae. Or any of the Vatican statements on stem-cell research. No Church has spoken out on life issues as clearly or forcefully as the Catholic Church; even the most hostile secularist recognizes this. That is one powerful way to engage the culture and address modern issues…wouldn’t you agree? And isn’t that what the Church has been called to do in every age?
I think you may perhaps be a tad too ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Or, rather, you seem to think it’s all bathwater…whereas there is indeed a baby in there!
Diane,
As you know, I believe that JPII and recent RCism capitulate too much with regard to what we might mean by “engaging the challenges of the modern world.” But let’s set that aside. Let’s assume that JPII and recent RC interaction with modernity are spot on. Even if this is the case, it is still quite easy to make the argument that the current (and indeed recent predecessors) EP is nearly all bathwater and very little baby with regard to such engagement, and what is meant by the rhetoric of such engagement. You defend the RCC in your comment, but Phil was speaking to a comment made by one Orthodox bishop concerning another Orthodox Patriarchate. Your response highlights the point I wish to make here. Just because an Orthodox hierarch uses the language of “engagement” does not mean they share the same baby as you. When talking about the EP we are talking about a man who has made pro-choice statements, who has given official Church awards and honors to overtly and unapologetically pro-death politicians (it is hard to imagine JPII or Ratzinger doing that), and who speaks the dribble of the very sort of modern compromise that, trust me, you have a problem with. Thus when he speaks of “engaging modernity” and the unity of the Churches and two lungs and ecumenism, and Catholics want to huddle up with him, it causes some of us Orthodox to wonder about ecclesio-political expediency on the part of the RCC. His language with regard to “engagement” may well mean something more akin to the use of such language by ECUSA than by that of JPII or Ratzinger.
Diane, my comment was meant in the spirit of Ochlophobist’s #13. Of course, Rome deserves great kudos for speaking out on moral topics as it has, and I agree with you that this is a way to engage the culture (of which the Moscow Patriarchate has done the same, as has also been noted).
The game is really given away, for me, by Metropolitan Ioannis’ own words: “There is an inability to face the challenges of the modern world, with tradition as an excuse.” (emphasis mine) Now, I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean: if the Tradition says abortion (for example) is wrong, how does that create an “excuse” for not facing the challenge of the modern world? It seems modernism demands abortion be celebrated, but Tradition provides no excuse for the Church to fail to disagree, even in the thoughtful way in which JPII or B16 have gone about it; in fact, it demands the opposite. The only way I can read Ioannis, tainted as I am as an ex-Anglican, is that Tradition is acting as a stubborn excuse to not yield to the world. If that’s what insularity is, let’s have more of it.
Perhaps what Met. Zizioulas is referring to as the “inability to face the modern world” has nothing to do with what commentators are referring to here.
Perhaps his pointing to “tradition” has something to do with the Russian Orthodox Church’s habit of allying itself, identifying itself, with the government of Russia.
That’s fairly “traditional” in Russia.
evagrius, I believe you are quite correct.
Thank you!
There are many good points on this thread, and it was enjoyable reading them. I think it is best to highlight the observation that historically for Orthodox bishops, when the going gets tough, the tough go to Rome. That is not to bring in arguments on Papal primacy or anything of the sort, but rather to merely observe that all of the churches now in the Unia (or union with Rome) began in the exact same way: poverty, diminishing numbers, jurisdictional disputes, etc. I am thinking specifically of the Melkite Church and the various unions in the area of Ukraine. Even though the EC is far from defecting to Papism, the fact that “Black Bart” has become so chummy with the Holy Father echoes this tendency in all too predictable of a way. As much as Catholic bloggers love to put up impressive pictures of the Patriarch in Rome all decked out in his long mandyas being carried by some lower cleric, he has way less faithful than a Catholic bishop in a small diocese in the U.S., or even a priest in a suburban Orange County parish. So what does he have to lose, really?
Talk of opening up to modernity also sends shivers up my spine and not in a good way. When will we all finally learn that mixing modernity and Christianity is like mixing orange juice and battery acid? We Roman Catholics are learning that the hard way, and for all the rhetoric of talking the good talk, in the First World we are hardly walking the walk (neither are Greece or Russia for that matter). Modernity is an intellectual marshmallow, and if we should learn anything from radical Islam, it is that the best way to challenge modernity is to ignore it and throw our “medieval” and “backwards” tenets in its face and be absolutely unapologetic about it. For all the talk of freedom and the rights of man, it is the chique ecclesiatics who are most deterministic as to what “postmodern man” can or cannot believe. Let the audacity of the Gospel decide that.
I for one applaud to a great extent Russian Orthodoxy’s “backwardness”, especially its “assault” on “freedom of religion” by general harassing of Protestants and other imported sects. If they are our “other lung” at least they are doing something right and something that we seem to be hesistant about doing: being closed minded when it comes to truth.
evagrius,
Met. Zizioulas is quoted as saying
“….the true value of tradition is only reached when we can reshape our tradition. Tradition as the Christian Church’s message does not mean doing nothing; instead it contains truth’s momentum and does not fear the challenge of the contemporary world.”
As he states, he uses the word tradition in the sense of “as the Christian Church’s message” thus it seems obvious that the prior phrase “with tradition as an excuse” means that the Russian church continues to deliver the same message as before with the excuse that it was the message they had given before. But, according to the Met., we should rather “reshape our tradition” and follow “truth’s momentum.” I think it quite clear he has something broader in mind than a notion of Russian caesaropapism which needs to be corrected. For one thing this comment is responding, in part, to recent MP statements on Orthodox involvement in worship services with other Christians – statements that the EP clearly disagrees with.
Arturo,
Very well put.
When will we all finally learn that mixing modernity and Christianity is like mixing orange juice and battery acid?
LOL, Arturo. You have what my Irish Nana would have called the gift of gab.
I still think, though, that you younguns are too ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater. There is a way to engage the culture without capitulating to it. Sure, we have made mistakes galore in the past 40 years. (And, as you point out, the Orthodox have hardly been exempt from such booboos. IMHO, if Doc Och is willing to consider voting for Barack Never-Saw-an-Abortion-I-Didn’t-Like Obama, then his [Och’s] claims to be holding faster to the Ancient Tradition ring just a tad hollow. To my ears, at least.)
But the Holy Father is showing us the way forward–toward an authentic appropriation of Vatican II, one that addresses modern concerns without being coopted by them. As I’ve said before somewhere or other, I think the Church is called to be like the wise steward Jesus mentions: drawing both old and new things from the storehouse. (No, my Orthodox brethren, that does not mean inventing new doctrines. Just thought I’d head that tired old canard off at the pass… ;))
The fact that we’ve been addressing modernity the wrong way does not mean it should not be addressed at all. It simply means we should start addressing it the right way.
And, with all due respect, I do not think the Islamic fundamentalists should be our model, thank you very much. I like my knee-length skirts and high heels, and I don’t look too hot in a burka.
Diane
BTW, I think it’s also important to point out that we all have our fruitcakes and whackjobs. In the Catholic Church, whackjobbiness largely takes the form of hippie revisionism. In Orthodoxy, it takes the form of anti-semitic crackpottiness (among other things). Things are tough all over.
Moreover, ISTM you cannot have a church of 1.31 billion without having your share of flakes. But I bet my Orthodox brethren would love to have 1.31 billion members, flakes and all, despite their claims to the contrary. ;)
Arturo’s analogy about mixing orange juice and battery acid reminds me of a less felicitous one about mixing ice-cream and horse manure. Dun do very much to hurt the manure, but it sure ruins the ice-cream!
I, for one, cannot agree with Arturo’s (and the Ochlophobist’s, by implication) approval of the persecutions in Russia of late. Of all churches, the Russian Orthodox Church should be the most cautious about getting cozy with a state that has, at various points in history, played it like a puppet on a string. Furthermore, if the task at hand is spreading the fullness of the Gospel, then I would think it fairly obvious that Quakers, Lutherans and Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t simply become Orthodox when one shuts down their churches and takes away their right to congregate in the name of Orthodoxy. That is simply a refusal on the part of the Church to deal with a very real issue: these people are looking for God in other places because they can’t find Him in the Orthodox Church. What is needed is a kind of self-examination on the part of the Church herself, and perhaps repentance. To silence these voices with the hammer of the State, it seems to me, is one manifestation of insularity, a real refusal to “engage”.
Which is not to say that I agree with Metropolitan Zizioulas’ assessment of the Russian Church. The Ochlophobist has underscored already the ways in which Moscow has addressed the many anxieties and problems of our time. But even where there is still “insularity”, so to speak, I think the Metropolitan underestimates the severity of the wounds from which the Russian Church is recovering both within Russia and in the diaspora, and he is therefore impatient with the slowness of her healing. A man who has just undergone triple bypass surgery doesn’t just spring to his feet and go a-preachin’ the next day. If the Russian Church can indeed be faulted for a kind of “conservatism”, as he says, it is only because the Church became for the Russian people an ark amid the great flood—an admirable success in my opinion. Was not Noah at least rightfully hesitant about stepping out of his boat too soon?
Finally, I don’t understand why the Metropolitan chose so public a forum to rebuke the Moscow Patriarchate. Christ in Matthew 18 called first for a one-on-one confrontation, then with a witness if necessary, and only after these, public rebuke—but even then, one is to “tell it to the Church”, not to AsiaNews.
W.H.
To silence these voices with the hammer of the State, it seems to me, is one manifestation of insularity, a real refusal to “engage”.
Amen. And not just insularity. Insecurity. But I will save that discussion for another time.
I have a question for Och and Philip: If we Catholics are in such bad shape compared with you Orthodox, then how come (per current rumors) a whole big heap of Anglicans are turning toward Rome (not to Moscow or Constantinople, although lesser numbers do turn in that direction)? Why do Anglicans seeking to escape their own communion’s craziness so often turn toward Rome? Why is it they don’t fixate on the Clown Mass in some obscure diocese, as y’all do? (If there’s a Clown Mass happening anywhere on the planet, no matter how rarely or remotely, some Internet polemicist will ferret it out and represent it as The Face of Contemporary Catholicism(TM). For those of us “on the ground” who rarely or never experience such nonsense, this relentless misrepresentation does get a tad old, I must confess.)
But anyway…if we’re in such bad shape, if our method of engaging modernity has been such an unmitigated failure, then why are we attracting these conservative Anglicans, including (reportedly) some well-known bishops?
I think I can give you the answer in a nutshell: authority. Specifically: Magisterial authority. As Father Aidan Nichols put it (WRT his own Tiber-jump), denizens of one state-associated and deeply divided church do not necessarily want to hop right into another one.
Could somebody define “modernity” for me?
After all, here we are, using one of “modernity”‘s tools.
I really don’t care what the MP’s responses are to “modernity” if what they have done is regress to the past by allying themselves, once again, ( as in the Communist period, as in the Czrarist era), to the government.
Right now, it looks, it seems, that there’s a renascence of Orthodoxy in Russia. But how much of this is due to nationalism and how much due to faith? No one will know for at least one generation. To my mind, whatever result will be will be to the detriment of faith.
If you want to really know what the teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church is google the basis of the Social concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. Abortion is covered in it. The isolation of the Russian Church has nothing to do with ecumenical dialogue in love, but rather the under handed ways the EP interferes where it has no business involving itself, and the human reaction to the situation in Estonia and now in Ukraine.
I think what gets people’s backs up is the issue that often those accusing others of having no answer to modernity (however you want to define that), are themselves what might be termed modernists; and perhaps radically so. That is why such a statement just doesn’t come across well. You can’t engage the modern world because you don’t support xyz, etc.
On the topic of Anglicans returning to Rome, I think the answer is easy. It’s ultimately their tradition.
Right now, it looks, it seems, that there’s a renascence of Orthodoxy in Russia. But how much of this is due to nationalism and how much due to faith?
I think it’s fair to say there is a fairly widespread candle holder phenomenon, but certainly real faith as well.
WH,
If such an “engagement” means the accepting this statement:
“That is simply a refusal on the part of the Church to deal with a very real issue: these people are looking for God in other places because they can’t find Him in the Orthodox Church.”
then we have some laid some theological presuppositions on the table already – namely that it is some sort of theological good that other faith communions exist in order that God might be found in them by those who cannot find God in the Church. Perhaps the Church could remain agnostic with regard to such a proposition. She certainly can and has in the past rejected similar propositions. I do not see how she can assent to such a proposition. It is a complicated matter, to say the least.
Having once been a Protestant financed by American Evangelicals to evangelize Russians in Russia, and having been in both Orthodox and Protestant churches there, and having talked with Russians of all stripes about this matter, I have this sense – the Russian state would interfere with some Western financed Protestant sects even if the MP did not condone such activity (the question with regard to state interference with Catholics is different and more complicated). The question is whether or not the MP should speak out against such activity. Given the theological complications mentioned above, I do not see any need for urgency. I also wonder about the MP’s relationship to the new Russian state. I wonder if they are so much the pawn we tend to assume, and I also wonder this – is the MP’s relationship with the Russian state in some ways analogous to the way in which the USCCB relates to the US state in this respect – each pursues the political avenues available to it within a given political order and it is the political order which largely determines those avenues whether we like it or not. I guess I cannot see how it is any more insular for the Russian Church to operate within the local political paradigm as it is for any other church to operate within its local political paradigm. The USCCB’s political involvement is very American in style, and it is hard to imagine such a style of political involvement being exported to a Russian context. The Russian Church’s involvement in Russian politics is very Russian in style. The question then becomes whether or not the Russian Church should be involved in politics at all. Sometimes I think they most need a St. Nil, sometimes a St. Joseph (of Volokolamsk). A generation before the Revolution a few St. Josephs might have led to a different outcome. During the Soviet times, St. Nil’s way was the only possible way. Today it is difficult to discern which way of political involvement is best for the Russian Church.
Your comments on “so public a forum” seem quite right.
AMM: Who you callin’ a modernist? ;)
Anyone who knows me in Real Life would find that charge laughable.
And isn’t it classic ad hominem? Don’t engage the argument; just try to discredit the person making it.
Oh well, sess la vee.
God bless,
Diane the Troglodyte
Could somebody define “modernity” for me?
Excellent idea, that. Defining our terms–what a concept!
AMM: Who you callin’ a modernist? ;)
Nobody actually. My point is Metropolitan John’s comments come across poorly (to me at least) because they are couched in the same language as those who are real modernizers. I am not accusing anyone here, or Metropolitan John, of that. Just stating why some would find the language off-putting. Hope that clarifies.
but rather the under handed ways the EP interferes where it has no business involving itself, and the human reaction to the situation in Estonia and now in Ukraine.
I’m sure those in Estonia and Ukraine who are not ethnically Great Russian might have a different take. But that’s grist for a different mill…
My dear Diane,
After Matthew Fox joined ECUSA he did a “rave Mass” in which rave music was played throughout. After the “consecration” he poured the communion wine (white wine) into a large squirt gun and squirted it onto the raving masses (could not resist that noun). Pretty much all of these Anglicans coming into Rome now were in communion with Fr. Matthew when this event occurred. Thus, Barney and scary puppet Masses might well be seen as a step up.
Also – for the record, I have long argued that when an Orthodox is faced with a pro-death candidate and another candidate whom they cannot in good conscience support, they should simply not vote. That said, I do my part to “face the challenges of modernity” by, as you say, being “willing to consider” any idea put on the table. How uninsular of me. I am old enough to have gone to jail with faithful pro-life Catholics and Protestants for rescue activities before RICO laws largely put an end to that. If you were to consider my writings on the subject of abortion floating about this pixel netherworld, you might just find that I am among those Orthodox most committed to decrying the grave evil of abortion. Indeed, if you are familiar with the politics within the pro-life movement, I am generally associated with the so labeled “radical” or “militant” side, as opposed to the botox smiley faced “right-to-life” side which has so sold out to the Republican Party.
Diane, I think I’m the only Phil on this thread, but I haven’t said anything here (or anywhere else) about Catholics being in bad shape versus the Orthodox. I think you and I have had one or two exchanges in which I mildly criticized the state of the Catholic liturgy, but it wasn’t meant to be a broad brush indictment of Catholicism. While my move has been to the East, things, as you say, are tough all over. So while Rome and Orthodoxy each have their problems, I have nothing but respect for the way in which the Vatican has stood against the moral revisionism that seems so seductive to the Protestant world.
As for the Anglicans, I’m not so sure your statement is broadly correct. For example, in the U.S., I see as much interest in Orthodoxy as Roman Catholicism from disaffected Episcopalians. On the other hand, I’ve been advised that Anglo-Catholics in the UK are not the same stripe as the few left here. Many in the UK apparently are sufficiently over the Tiber as a normal course of business that they worship with the Roman Rite, rather than the BCP. So, it doesn’t seem odd to me that they would look to Rome first, second and third.
More generally, Anglicans are in love with their liturgy, and Orthodox worship is completely different. (Of course, if Episcopalians were honest with themselves, they’d admit that, with praise bands popping up all over, they’re not really practicing the liturgy they idolize in any case.) Still, RC worship is going to represent a far smaller learning curve than Orthodoxy. People being people, I think it makes sense that Rome would attract more Anglican adherents on that basis alone, plus their market presence (excuse my secularist term) is far greater. None of this, in my view, has anything to do with the respective truth claims of Orthodoxy or Catholicism.
Oh, where to start? The whole idea that “people shouldn’t be coerced” should justify the propagation of heretical sects is contrary to the traditional ideas of the Universal Church. We are not talking here about mass forced conversions, or razing their already existing churches to the ground, or anything of that sort. But using zoning laws to make sure their cancerous heresies don’t spread, or making sure they get zilch for air time to spew their “Bible only” rhetoric is something the State in all piety should be exhorted to do, and I am glad that the Church in Russia is doing it. It was only after Vatican II that the State ceased to do this in many parts of Latin America due to the utter folly of Dignitatis Humanae. In such places as Columbia, Catholicism was disestablished as the state religion, and the American money flowed into these places and snatched many from the bosom of Holy Mother Church.
As a student of Plato, I would like to think that only real sin is ignorance, that all people seek the truth unselfishly, but this is not the case. Just as sin is much easier than virtue, so the lie can be more appealing than the truth. A level playing field for both will only lead to the defeat of the truth, and pace Diane, no matter how well we seem to be doing in this country, the Roman Church is an endangered species in Europe because of this, and the Pope knows this best of all. People have itchy ears, and if they can be “coerced” in giving the truth a fair hearing and being dissuaded from the lie, as long as it doesn’t go to extremes, all power to those fighters for the truth.
Our idea of the complete separation of Church and State is also very unchristian and not at all ancient. The power and position of the Catholic monarch was closer to the Byzantine idea of symphonia than the disasterous free-for-all that Catholic social teaching became last century. The Church must always be on guard against the State seizing too much power in the ecclesiastical realm, but absolute separation only brings the ghostly existence of Christianity as “personal choice” that is destroying religiosity in the West.
Well. I’m glad that I stirred up the pot. But, I think that all of the respondents miss the point.
My asking the question, “What is modernity?”, points to you, the respondents, and your failure to respond to the question.
Each one has shown how “modern” you are whether or not you acknowlege it. in your response,
I wasn’t intending on responding to the question of modernity, but I’ll give it a shot if that makes you happy. Modernity is the ideological ethos that comes with the rise of general commodity production in society; i.e. the rise of capitalism and the dominance of the market over all sectors of life. We see this best when we apply the term, “values” to the ethical and moral realm. One values a chair at five dollars, but the question becomes, “how much is the family worth? A human life, etc. Family values?” In other words, the free flowing of capital, goods, and labor necessitates an ideological superstructure that more easily facilitates trade and the maximal acquiring of surplus value. Thus, such atavistic allegiances to religious, racial, or ethnic identities and their determining of the political, social and economic order become unfeasible for modernist ideologues. In order to maximize profits for society, I should be able to live, work, trade, and consume however I please and as my market powers allow me, and this leads quite easily into the idea that people should be able to believe how they like, whether it be in God or the Alien Wargod from Xaxon 5.
This becomes a real problem once we begin to apply it to the realm of the Church: in performing the task of presbyter, a woman should be able to compete with a man in order to maximize spiritual profits, as our Anglican brethren would have us believe. Or to bring it closer to home, a woman in a track suit is just as suited if not more to hand out Holy Communion at Mass: it is more efficient and is a real time saver. And so on and so forth. The market does not belong in the Church, competition does not belong in the Church,”value” does not belong in the Church and it is at the root of the relativism that the Pope has diagnosed: it is not worth as much to me as it is to you. Behind modernity lies the moral sewer of the “free market”.
I hope that answers you question. You can tell I used to be a Marxist.
No. It doesn’t. That’s just the last aspect of “modernity”.
If “modernity” was only an aspect of economic activity, it would be easy to deal with.
I don’t think that is what “modernity” is.
Try again.
( Sorry- but while your response is an interesting and even, almost, a good one, it still fails the test.)
I’m not going to give a response/ definition since, as all of you, I’m swimming in ‘modernity”.
Like the fish swimming in water.
And this is the “‘problem”, if that is the correct term. How many generations has it been since “modernity”?
“I’m not going to give a response/ definition since, as all of you, I’m swimming in ‘modernity”.
Then why do you pose a question that doesn’t have an answer? Seems pretty silly to me. Or do you aim at the whole Zen master treatment? You don’t seem to be doing a good job either.
Och,
In my mind, the self-examination of the Church—asking ourselves why so many are people leaving us for other churches and in what manner we may have failed as servants of the Gospel—need not mean accepting the existence of these “alternative” communions as a necessary good. Unfortunately, I don’t have the philosophical endurance to consider that question, which, as you say, is a complicated matter indeed.
I appreciate your hermeneutic of compassion for the Russian Church. No matter what we might say here, we mustn’t think that we know the situation better than Patriarch Alexy himself. I imagine that he is faced with decisions far more difficult than any of us can ever imagine. The Russian Church is in a delicate situation, no doubt, and I don’t wish to tell the Patriarch what to do, only to ask him to proceed with caution. That is also my stance toward the Ecumenical Patriarch and his quest for survival.
W.H.
Well, Arturo,
No Zen master am I- no way.
But I think that you’re as confused as the rest of us.
It’s nice that you seek ol’ Plato ‘n Plotinus…but they don’t have the response to your needs..not now.
As for me, Prez, Bird, Diz and Duke give me some respite as well as ol’ Chrysostom.
There doesn’t seem to be a definition of modernism, is there?
Perhaps another way of expressing Arturo’s thesis is to say that modernity is primarily utilitarian, that is, concerned with maximizing the “good” (utility) of individuals, groups, countries, species. (And if you can’t imagine what else would constitute morality, then you’ve already bought into utilitarianism.)
Thus proponents of abortion often point to the respective consequences (social, economic, etc.) of allowing a fetus to be born vs. killing it. That, anyway, is what I believe is distinctive about modernity and capitulation to the “modern world,” and I think it more or less jives with what Arturo wrote.
Doc Och: Ah yes. All those Anglican converts are fleeing rave Masses for clown Masses. Right. Because, of course, clown Masses are an everyday occurrence in contemporary Catholicism. Right. Which is why, after having lived in five states in the course of 57 years, I’ve never encountered a single one. Or even heard of one occurring in my vicinity. In fact, if it weren’t for the Internet, I’d never even know that a clown Mass had ever occurred anywhere on the planet, ever ever ever. And heck, I’ve even been to the Paulist Center, where John Kerry goes to church. And yet…no clown Masses. Go figure.
How can I take anything you say seriously when you make arguments like this? Your responses perfectly exemplify Arturo’s pithy characterization of the typical Orthodox Convert attitude toward us poor benighted papists: “Our **** doesn’t stink, but yours does.” (Sorry, Arturo; I keep invoking that one because I think it’s one of the funniest, most incisive comments I’ve ever run across.)
You compare your best with our worst–and blithely misrepresent our worst as typical and representative. If we wanted to to do the same thing vis-a-vis y’all, believe me, we’d have plenty of material to work with. Y’all have your share of fruitcakes who, in their own way, make Matthew Fox look positively innocuous. Things really are tough all over, you know. Sin may take many forms, but no communion has cornered the market on it. No, not even ours.
So, what is it that attracts Anglican converts to Orthodoxy, then? The chance to go all snooty and snotty, a la Frederica, and cling to Know-Knothing anti-Catholic canards while ignorantly dismissing anything and everything Western? I’ll take the refugees from rave Masses anyold day, thanks very much. At least they’ve got a grain of humility.
Each one has shown how “modern” you are whether or not you acknowlege it. in your response,
Exactemente.
Och, I apologize for impugning your pro-life cred. I have no idea who those botox-faced pro-lifers are, however. I’ve never encountered one. Maybe they’re all out attending those ubiquitous Clown Masses. ;)
Diane
Hmmm. I too feel that Arturo gave a good answer to the question, “What is modernity?” (Although I thought we were trying to define “modernISM,” which is a whole different word and a very different thing.)
But, like evagrius (perhaps a tad more hesitantly), I have to say that Arturo’s definition doesn’t go far enough, IMHO. It touches on only one aspect of modernity (and doesn’t say anything at all about modernISM).
But I’ve just got back from seeing Wall * e, so my own ideas about modernity are a tad warped at the moment.
None of this, in my view, has anything to do with the respective truth claims of Orthodoxy or Catholicism.
Point taken.
And now, lest I monopolize this combox, I am exiting the discussion for the time being. :-)
I think the economic foundation of modernity is primary and leads to all of its other aspects. Feminism, for example, would be practically impossible without an industrial society since in any other society, a woman’s place would always be in the home since no one else would do the difficult labor needed to maintain a household. In determining what a social phenomenon is, one must start with its most key foundations. Those foundations will not be able to explain everything at first, but at least they will hint at it.
For example, the enthroning of quantifiable information as the only real form of certain knowledge is due to the fact that such a utilitarian approach is the one that is best suited to obtain profit. Discussing Plotinus under a tree makes about zero dollars an hour, working in a lab to find alternative forms of energy is something that people will pay big bucks for. (Here we see the hand of the market again.) Such is the suspicion of modern forms of discourse of any form of metaphysical thinking: it is not immediately provable and it is deemed a “waste of time” and thus relegated to the realm of opinion. Such ideas also penetrate ideas about religion: “better catechized” often is reduced to the idea of “what makes better citizens” for a liberal society. The only difference is that conservatives say that being good traditional Christians makes people into better citizens, which I don’t think is necessarily the case.
I don’t of course expect to answer the question here, but to say that we are incapable of grasping what modernity is because we are swimming in it is defeatist and historically naive. Also, the idea that we somehow are all modern and have been so for a long time is an equally ignorant statement. Here I evoke Trotsky’s idea of combined and uneven development: Russia at the turn of last century was not completely capitalist, but the bulk of labor was still employed in the feudal mode of production. So just as an economy is not completely modern, so culture and religion have not been completely modern in most places. For example, I don’t think that the religiosity that my mother brought over from Mexico is modern at all, nor was that of my grandmother who spent most of her life in southern Texas. Nor do I think modernity is a static category: what was conceived of as the “modern world” by the Second Vatican Council was mainly the conceptual creation of European and American intellectuals that students of the “developing world” (like yours truly) would say does not really apply anywhere else. I think, however, that there are certain key phenomena involved in modernity which I have mentioned, and those are beyond dispute.
By the way, Diane, I am flattered that you like to use my phrase, but that is not to take away from the fact that our excrement as Catholic stinks and stinks badly. The Orthodox continue to get a lot right, and there is much we have to learn from them, especially when it comes to the recovery of our own sacred traditions.
Something else besides economics gave rise to “modernity”.
Economics certainly played a role. The understanding of economics changed greatlyduring the “enlightenment” period as the writings of Adam Smith etc; attest.
But Smith et. al were already “modern”, certainly more modern than they were “pre-modern”.
It’s certainly true that “modernity’ isn’t uniform nor total throughout the world.
In fact, one of the underlying reasons for present day conflicts, ( the “War on Terror” etc;) is precisely the fact that “modernity” is not uniformly present in all cultures.
But, everyone who partcipates in this blog, is unabashadly “modern” whether they like it or not.
Ironic, isn’t it?
P.S. Arturo- if you grew up in the U.S. and have a U.S. education, you’re “modern” no matter what state your mother’s or grandmother’s religion is or was. The same goes for everyone else.
Never for a second was I denying that I am modern, so I don’t think I have to respond to that. However, I was rather nuancing the static category of modernity as it has been presented here.
And while people have found my analysis wanting in a fundamental way, no one has been specific as to what it is lacking and offered an alternative. So I will just conclude that evagrius is being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. If you refuse to correct and illuminate, that gives you no carte blanche to negate and dismiss. At the very least one should devote more study to the question before pouncing on someone else’s answer.
And I still think the idea of not being able to analyze and critique modernity because we are “all modern” is about as ridiculous as saying that we cannot know what sin is because we are all sinners. You are getting caught in an unhelpful tautological absurdity.
“better catechized” often is reduced to the idea of “what makes better citizens” for a liberal society. The only difference is that conservatives say that being good traditional Christians makes people into better citizens, which I don’t think is necessarily the case.
Hmmm. I have never thought of “better catechized” in that way, nor has it ever been presented to me that way. I think “better catechized” means knowing the Faith better so you can live it and get to Heaven.
Better catechesis also helps protect one against the blandishments of the sheep-stealers. So, in that sense, yes, it’s practical.
But as a means to produce good citizens? This is the first time I’ve ever seen it so described.
Arturo:
Y’know, a lot of this discussion is over my head. I’ve never been a Marxist (not seriously, that is; I dabbled during my youth), and I’m not big on philosophy. So take it from whence it comes.
But I can’t help thinking that modernity is the proverbial two-edged sword. It has serious negative aspects, but it also has positive aspects. That is precisely why engaging it is imperative. As Christians, we are called to capitalize on the positive aspects and to resist the negative. We are not called to simply chuck the whole thing. As the Gospel says, “Be in the world, not of it.” Most of us are not called to the fuga mundi. Some are, but most are not.
So, then, what are some of modernity’s positives? One might just as well ask what are some of the positive contributions of Western culture. Let’s face it; it comes to the same thing. The Orthodox rejection of modernity is part and parcel of Orthodox anti-Westernism. So, OK…what’s good about Western modernity?
I would contend that advances in medical science are by and large an immense positive. Certain of our Orthodox brethren may condemn and dismiss everything Western and modern. But if they desperately needed life-saving surgery (using advanced Western technology), I rather doubt they’d turn it down.
Has Western medical science been used for great evil? Of course. Any tool can be used either for good or for evil. But that does not mean we should never develop tools. It means only that we should strive to use them exclusively for good. For life-saving surgery, yes. For vaccines and medicines, yes. For abortion and euthanasia, no.
Another positive contribution of Western modernity is the end of the slave trade and of slavery and serfdom. You have praised the Muslims for holding the line against modernity…but at what price have they done so? In certain Islamic countries (the Sudan springs to mind) slavery still flourishes, including sexual slavery involving kids as young as 12 and 13. Ths is an abomination before the Lord. The modern West was certainly right to abolish slavery and the slave trade, although it took them entirely too long to do so.
These examples could easily be multiplied. No, I am not trying to paint an overly rosy picture of the modern West. I know our culture is decadent. But so was medieval Byzantium. So is Putin’s Russia. So is every culture in every epoch. It’s the human condition. It’s called Original Sin.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I know it’s not a wholesale rejection of modernity (an impossibility anyway) or a refusal to engage the modern world.
You may appreciate Patriarch Aleksi’s crackdown on non-Orthodox communions, but IMHO it’s sheer thuggery. Protestant churches have been burned down. Catholics and Protestants have been attacked by mobs. A few years ago, in Georgia, a group of Italian Catholic pilgrims to a Catholic/i> Marian shrine was beset by an Orthodox mob, who pelted them with stones to drive them away. Several were seriously injured, IIRC. The U.S. House of Representatives protested the brutal attack, but neither Putin nor Akeksi did one thing about it. This is not heroic resistance to decadent modernism. It’s thuggery, pure and simple.
If you prefer thuggery (whether Islamic or Orthodox) to Anything Modern, well, that’s certainly your and Och’s prerogative. But me, I’ll take Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
And I stand by what I’ve been saying all along: There is a way to engage modern culture without capitulating to the Zeitgeist. There has to be. Recourse to neanderthal thuggery really isn’t an option. Not for Christians who take seriously the words of Christ!
Diane
P.S. Arturo, sure, I recognize that our Catholic ***** does stink. The thing is, though, we’re willing to admit that. Whereas some Internet Orthodox polemicists seem unable or unwilling to admit (in public at least) that Orthodoxy can ever be wrong about anything or do wrong in any way. Instead, they fixate exclusively (and uncharitably) on our stinky ******. I assume that’s the phenomenon you were alluding to in the quote that so tickled me.
P.P.S. I still think, also, that your and Och’s youth may partly explain your penchant for throwing babies out with bathwater. Youthful enthusiasm is a Good Thing, but the youthful penchant for going to extremes (in one direction or another) can often strike us older folks as a pain in the tush.
Diane,
I don’t think governments should be held responsible for what mobs do. Besides, the old Soviet Union is no place for tourists, as my brother found out when he was almost beat down by a group of drunken Russians in eastern Ukraine. The traditional Christian ideas about the State’s obligation to foster the truth and hinder the lie have nothing to do with thuggery, and the pre-1962 papal encyclicals that fostered this truth can attest to this.
The problem with Dignitatis Humanae et al. is that they materially (and some would say formally) contradict the teachings on this matter that came before. While you may prefer one or the other, that is irrelavent to the conversation: the truth is the truth whether we like it or not, and the traditional truth of the Church is that the lie has no rights that the truth is bound to respect. At the very most, it is tolerated so that a greater evil won’t come from its supression. (People don’t know that there was an initial draft that upheld these opinions at the Council that was jettisoned due to the machinations of the Rhine fathers, but that is another story.)
That being said, I am far from being someone who thinks that modernity is unequivocally bad, on the contrary. In some ways, I am to the left of most “neo-Caths”. I think that the Church, for example, has no good answer to wanting to defend the sanctity of marriage and human rights, yet argue that homosexuals have no right to some sort of civil union. It seems like a whole lot of wanting your cake and eating it too: we want to enjoy liberal society while at the same time wanting certain groups to relegate themselves to second class citizenship. I think that is unrealistic. (For the record, I am not saying that homosexuality is not inherently disordered: I do believe that.)
So I don’t think you can put me in the same boat with Owen and others, whose main goal at times seems to be to gripe about modernity to no end. I have locked horns with him and others as to the simplistic and romanticist nature of such critiques. I love modern avant-garde music, my fiancee has a doctorate in neurobiology and is thus far more educated than I am (she wears the pants in a lot of ways, and I’m cool with that), and I am glad I am not going to die of some nasty disease at the age of 33. However, just because I am modern doesn’t mean that I can’t see some rather problematic things about it. Modern medicine and no coercion in belief: good. Mass abortions and women handing out Holy Communion in track suits: bad. If modernity is not a static category, if it is something we can form and mold, then there are ways that we can integrate some aspects of the pre-modern ethos into it. The error of classical liberals and the authors of Gaudium et Spes is that they had a very static idea about what modern man could and could not accept. The most deterministic thing one can ever say is: “times have changed”. If they have changed, they can change again. I am not saying that this is easy, but anything worth doing (as the cliche goes) seldom is.
By the way, Diane, I wrote a post on my blog called How the Italians became Irish on this topic that you might be interested in. You should check it out.
“And I still think the idea of not being able to analyze and critique modernity because we are “all modern” is about as ridiculous as saying that we cannot know what sin is because we are all sinners. You are getting caught in an unhelpful tautological absurdity.”
Regarding sin- it took Someone without sin to point out our sin.
As for “modernity”. it does take someone not modern to point it out to us moderns. That someone, of course, is usually regarded as a curiosity.
I don’t think governments should be held responsible for what mobs do.
You don’t believe in the Rule of Law, then? The point I was trying to make by citing the Georgian attack on the Catholic pilgrims is that no one did anything about it. There was an appeal to the authorities–repeated appeals, in fact–but the authorities refused to do anything. They knew who the perps were, but they refused to prosecute them. How is this not a recipe for thuggery?
Do you think it’s OK for crazed mobs to stone or beat people without the slightest redress from the authorities? How is this Biblical, let alone Christian? Even the Old Testament recognizes the role of the Rule of Law in protecting the defenceless (including the “stranger and sojourner”) from oppression and violence. Are you willing to overthrow that ancient tradition? If so, God help us.
By this logic, would you condone the 1204 Crusade? After all, it was allegedly carried out in the interests of subduing the “Greek Schismatics.”
How about the torture and execution of heretics? I know great saints condoned this–viz. Augustine’s invocation of “compelle intrare”–but can we honestly say that it squares with everything we know about Our Lord from the New Testament? Did He ever employ violently coercive methods? Did He not say that those who live by the sword will die by the sword?
Christianity is NOT Islam; that’s the whole point. The Qu’ran enjoins conversion by the sword. The New Testament does not. Heck, even the Old Testament does not!
I hope our esteemed Eirenikon Editor allows this thread to extend beyond 50 posts, because I think it touches on huge issues. And I believe we can (with God’s grace) carry on the discussion without rancor or uncharity.
God bless,
Diane
[…] 13, 2008 by Eirenikon Editor I was out of town again last week and came back to find an interesting combox discussion of what “modernity” is and how the Church ought to engage it. Once again, the most […]
A note on Arturo’s comments regarding his sainted mother and grandmother, ( I presume they are are sainted on the grounds of his reverence for them- that may not be a “canonical” reason but it is for me- all ancestors, living or dead, who transmit, in whatever fashion, an aspect of Truth, however small, are sainted); If I may be so bold, ( and I “hear” no dissension,) I should like to point to my “step”grandmother, of blessed memory, who was as Hispanic as could be. She was in her eighties and ended up in the care of one of her sons who had become an evangelical Christian, ( as “modern” a faith as could be- as events show). She, a lifelong Catholic, was not allowed by her son to attend Mass, nor partake of the Eucharist, nor, worst of all as far as she could see, pray the rosary, ( he took her rosary away from her- it’s a “pagan” practice according to his church’s tenets).
I saw her in the hospital, facing her last days. I was able to obtain for her a rosary and secure the ministrations of a Catholic Byzantine priest. When I came to visit her, I gave her the rosary, which she kissed and put ’round her neck. She saw the priest who gave her the Eucharist, Byzantine style. She had never seen a Byzantine Catholic priest before but “knew” who he was and took communion with the deepest reverence.
This was a woman who lived in both the “pre-modern’ and modern world. who was able to transcend both in order to participate in the “real” world.
I feel deeply privileged to have seen this example of ecumenical worship and transcendence of what we, far too often see, of barriers to true worship.
Diane,
“You don’t believe in the Rule of Law, then?”
I think that is the main problem, not the principals I elucidated here. In most places that are not the United States, the rule of law is sketchy at best. (Anyone who gets stopped by the police in Latin America knows this quite well.) The fact that authorities do nothing about people getting assaulted is unexcusable, but that is not what I am talking about by any means. Nor am I talking about Catholics getting ticketed illegally outside of the Catholic Cathedral in Athens on Latin Good Friday: this is just an example of the corruption that is rampant in most non-American polities. What I am talking about is the right of governments to stop Mormon missionaries at the border saying, “Sorry, this is a Catholic country” (an aside: when I went to Argentina for seminary, I got on board a plane with about forty Mormon missionaries on it), or telling the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Brazil that they have no right to airtime because they are spreading heresy. Where you went from that to the 1204 sack of Constantinople, I don’t know. Maybe you should read my comments a few times before you respond.
evagrius,
I never sainted my mother or grandmother. To say that they have a deep faith is different from de facto “canonizing” them. If you want to know more about my deceased grandmother, you can click on this link.
Arturo–I have a very bad habit of reading the first few paragraphs of a comment and then responding to that before reading the rest of the comment. Mea culpa! Or, as my own sainted ancestors would say: Mi dispiace! ;)
I do want to say that I most certainly do not put you in the same boat with Owen. :D (Owen’s ears must be tingling…sorry, Owen.)
I’m kind of argued out at the moment; have been dealing with Teenage Angst for the past little while, and that kind of takes the wind out of my sails. (Wait till you have teenagers. Oy!)
But, anyway, I’ll go check out your blog post about Italians morphing into Irish. (BTW, I’m half Italian, half Irish — the classic Boston combo. That’s why I get to love both Celtic music and Italian opera. :))
“I never sainted my mother or grandmother. To say that they have a deep faith is different from de facto “canonizing” them. If you want to know more about my deceased grandmother, you can click on this link.”
Never said you did…and as I pointed out, I wasn’t meaning it in a “canonical” way.
You take yourself too seriously, or rather, your opinions too seriously.
Getting back to “modernity”, I think it was the result of a confluence of different intellectual/ spiritual currents. All of the currents existed separately in different cultures but, for some reason, they came together in Western Europe. It’s as if a chemical reaction occured. Each element in a reaction is fairly stable by itself. Put them together, however, and one has a reaction creating something new.
I think we’re still in the middle of the reaction which is why
there’s so much confusion.
I not so secretly love le théâtre de l’absurde, particularly Eugene Ionesco, in part because it is a theatric form that expresses a latent hatred of theater, which is in keeping with ochlophobism. I wrote about this in the past year in some posts on drama and catharsis. Surely that counts for something.
Romantic. Ugh.
All right then, from now on it is Beckettesque modern anti-modernism, to keep myself fashionable.
Much of the discussion in this thread is apparently reliant on the views of Russian Orthodoxy that have been propagated through the Western secular media and the mainstream Catholic press.
At the very least, this is a serious case of double standard.
We Catholics have long learned not to trust the secular media to portray us well, due to its deep liberal and anti-religious biases. And “conservative” and “traditional” Catholics have long learned not to trust the “mainstream” Catholic press to accurately report on matters such as the Traditional Latin Mass and traditionalist religious orders. (At least, that was the situation prior to the election of Pope Benedict XVI)
And yet, when the secular media — or even the “mainstream” Catholic media — has nothing but negativity on the Russian Orthodox, instead of being suspicious, why do so many of us assume that the reports and commentaries are accurate? How many of the journalists who write these commentaries even know anything about the history and background of Russian Orthodoxy?
For that matter, the Russian Orthodox Church is woefully handicapped by the language barrier. Its English-language websites are relatively bare and un-updated compared to the Russian mirror sites, for instance. Even in the US, the Russian Orthodox presence (and the OCA is NOT Russian, save for the Dioceses of the West and Alaska) is tiny, and has no voice of responding to the negative judgments of the press. Vladyka Hilarion is a wonderful and very learned man, but he is sadly ignored by the Catholic press.
The fact is that Russian Orthodoxy has a very rich life, but much of that can be accessed only by those who know Russian. Next to Russian, Russian Orthodox Church representatives tend to favor French and German…. English is scarcely their language of choice.
And, as this Asian knows all too well, the American media (and, I am afraid, not a few American Catholic commentators) seems to think that it it isn’t in English, then it doesn’t exist. (Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but I hope you get what I’m conveying here.)
I understand that, during the Regensburg controversy, the Russian Orthodox Church took great pains to defend Pope Benedict XVI. No less than Dr. Alex Roman — no Russophile at all, and a Ukrainian Catholic at that — has assured me that the media defense of Pope Benedict mounted by the Moscow Patriarchate surpassed even that which was offered by the Western Catholic churches. Unfortunately, most of this defense was in Russian, and so the Western Catholic Church went unaware of this great defense of the Holy Father.
I am also aware that, at the height of renewed accusations of religious persecution in Russia, one of the four Latin-Rite bishops went on radio to strongly deny the accusations.
I myself am Filipino, and all I can say is that the Western media (the American and, even worse, the British) tends to interpret events in my country in the worst and most malicious way possible. If the Western media can do that to my country, which is an acknowledged ally of the West, then God knows how distorted the Western media’s view of a country like Russia is.