Are Catholics becoming utilitarian Christians?

[JReducation]

If people like you don’t speak, many will not know you even exist.

Hope this helps,
Ed

Yes it does, thank you. It’s very true. What has happened to religious, especially the very orthodox religious brothers and sisters is that they have become gun shy. Part of it is our fault. We surrendered too much control in the name of “greater lay participation in Church life,” which I’ll explain in a moment. The other part is a result of a time period in which we have been living for about 50 years.

The world, not just the Church, has become a very rude world, at times very aggressive. Western society does not need terrorists to blow it away. I’m not sure why the terrorists even both spending the money and time in blowing us up. Maybe they’re in a hurry. But if they were patient, all they would need to do is sit back and watch us implode.

After WW II, the Western world progressed at an incredible rate. It made so much political, economic, military and scientific progress that it lost control. That’s what happens when growth is unrestricted. Growth can have a very detrimental effect. Power can cause insanity. We saw it happen after the War. The world went insane.

It’s too easy to blame Vatican II, the bishops, theologians and whomever we can think of for the situation of the Church today. This leads me to the second part. The people whom we think were so horrible were really a product of their time. They were no different than political dissenters and dissenters in other areas of life. The second half of the 20th century was a period where dissent was glorified. To tell the truth, there was a need for dissent in certain areas.

Had it not been for dissent, South Africa would still be under White domination, Black people in the United States would still be on the other side of the railroad tracks. Women would still be studying and working as much as men and making less money. In religious life, the brothers would still be the houseboys to the priests and our priests would be living an aristocratic life at the expense of their own brothers, with the laity paying for it and being non-the-wiser. People with same-sex attractions would still be bullied and even killed. There were some things happening that needed to be confronted and changed. All of these issues had to do with a fundamental denial of human dignity which God gives. It is not man’s prerogative to decide to assign degrees of dignity and human rights. One of the good things that happened in the Church of the 20th century was that it woke up to the reality that it could no longer remain silent before the sin of oppression.

I believe that the power unleashed by the atomic bomb took everyone by surprise, including the United States. It scared the living daylights out of humanity. Instead of continuing a world war with weapons, the war continued, but it became a war of wills.

Many men and women born into this world war of wills became priests, nuns, brothers, theologians and religious educators. They entered the service of the Church determined to fight the establishment. I do not believe that there were as many conspiracies as people in Traddom like to think. That’s too easy. Humanity is not that simple. Conspiracies are contained. Dissent has not been contained to the Church. It’s everywhere. The Church has been just as much a victim as other social institutions.

We need to be careful not to idealize the Church so much that we forget that she has a human nature. Although she is the Bride of Christ and she is protected by the Holy Spirit, she’s not immune to human weakness and confusion. What Christ promised was that she would survive, not that she would not be bruised in the process.

It is my belief that my fellow religious, especially brothers, shy away from the public eye because they have been bruised. They have become gun shy. Martyrdom is great in theory. But in reality it takes a lot of courage. If all Christians possessed that much courage, we would be an endangered species. There is a certain irony to life. Timidity can sometimes be a way of surviving. I remember something that Bishop Fellay once said that I found to be simple and profound. He said that one has to learn when to duck. He went on to say that one can’t always be in constant battle or you run the risk of annihilation.

 

[JReducation]

I said that I would address the issue about yielding too much to the laity. Vatican II acknowledged that since Trent, more or less, the Church allowed the clergy to strip the laity of its rights, its voice, and its place. Somewhere, someplace and at some time, some idiot forgot that the Carmelites were founded by laymen; that Francis of Assisi was a layman who founded the largest religious family in the Church and the family that has given the most lay saints to the Church and the largest number of doctors. The same idiot forgot that teaching orders, nursing orders, Catholic schools and hospitals were founded by laymen. The forgot that among the early witnesses to the faith the majority of the martyrs were laymen. Let’s not forget that those great popes, priests, nuns and Church prelates did not drop out trees. They were born to lay parents who raised them in homes where the faith was usually maintained by the mother.

By Vatican II, it became very clear that the Church had allowed the clergy and religious to hijack her as one would hijack a plane with all of the passengers inside. The laity was in this Church that was held hostage. I have to add here, just to be honest and fair, there were many clergymen who protected the laymen. They were not cruel jailers. Others were tyrants. Parishes ran as fiefdoms, with the pastor as the Lord of the manor and the sister at the school as the Lady, always subject to her Lord, of course.

There was an attempt to rectify a derailment. We had to give the layman his and her proper place and return his and her rights. Unfortunately, many religious sisters and brothers, many theologians, many priests and their bishops over compensated. They not only returned to the laity what belonged to it by right, but they abdicated some of their roles and responsibilities to the laity. In many places, we created monsters.

What do I mean by monsters? We have laymen today who are very devout Catholics, very involved in what belongs to the laity and very submissive in areas that belong to someone else. However, we also have laymen who are a law unto themselves. These individuals see priests as their servants who must be available to them on demand, do what they believe a priest should do, dress as they believe a priest should dress, preach what they believe a priest should preach and not preach what they believe a priest should not say. You get the picture.

They have no use for religious brothers. They actually come out and tell us that. We’re too dumb to be priests. We can’t hear confessions or say mass, so what do we have to offer? Anyone can teach, nurse, care for the poor and do other corporal works of mercy, the life of prayer, penance, solitude and silence is a waste when there is so much to do in the “real world”.

As far as sisters are concerned, this new laity has very mixed feelings. Some want the sister who was the Catholic school matron. To hell with what the founder of her congregation had in mind. Sisters should be running our schools, no matter what.

Others want the liberal, masculine, sister who reinforces their beliefs about abortion, same-sex unions, birth control, divorce, female priests and whatever else there is.

The bottom line is that this new laity terrifies many brothers, priests and sisters. Therefore, many will simply shy away. Just go through a members list on CAF and see how many of us are here. Watch and see how many of those who are religious brothers, sisters or priests identify themselves as such on CAF. There are very few. I believe maybe three of us in more than 100,000 members. Why? Because as many of those who have been here will tell you, they came, they saw and they were beaten up by laymen.

We have a group of people who have given their lives to Christ and his people, but who are terrified of Christ’s people. That’s a shame.

It’s very easy to say that theologians, priests, brothers and sisters broke the trust that the laity had placed in them. Because it’s so easy to say that, we must ask ourselves, if the answer is so easy, why can’t we fix it?

The reason that we can’t fix it, is because it’s the wrong answer. The clergy, religious and theologians were not alone in violating trust. The correct thing to say is that clergy, religious, theologians and laity treated each other with disrespect, with arrogance, without feeling for the other person’s faith and that these camps engaged in a battle for control that is finally dying out. It’s not dead yet. Just today, I read a comment by a layman about something that Bl. John Paul had written. The person had the audacity to refer to Bl. John Paul’s writing as heretical and garbage. I don’t have a problem if you disagree and you say so. But when you call yourself a staunch orthodox Catholic and then turn around and a) Question a pope who is much more intelligent than you and much more knowledgeable of the faith than you, b) refer to a blessed of the Church in terms such as heretical and modernists, c) and speak about a pope of the Church that you profess to love with disdain, then you and I have a problem.

This is part of that utilitarian Catholicism of which I speak. It’s the Catholicism that says that one only respects those whom one approves, as if people had to pass a litmus test to be worthy of my respect. We forget that their dignity is given to them by God when he creates them. The office that they hold has a dignity of its own. The two combined, human dignity and dignity of the office, should be enough to restrain our savage tongue.

 

[JReducation]

I read that last article, it about made me sick. I really missed all of the Catholic Church’s problems through the 1960’s and 1970’s since my mother died in 1967 and so did our family’s connection to the Church. I knew only what secular society told me. I had a 10 year beginning, and my father was a good man, but the constant brainwashing of media meant that I took the bait hook, line, and sinker.

I’ve come out the other side now, but I weep for my faith.

Don’t let it impact you that way. It was not as horrible as people today love to make it sound. Let me explain some things. I lived through that era. I grew up in the 50s surrounded by Catholics. I entered the Church in 1967 or 68. Fr. Curren was one of my Moral Theology professors. In those days, you had to take four semesters of Moral Theology to get a degree in Spiritual Theology. It was assumed that you were going to do either retreat work or spiritual direction. It turns out that I do both. That’s for another day.

It is true that Father defended the positions of which he is accused. However, it is wrong to vilify him or any of these men. First of all, they were not monsters as some of these modern traditionalists and conservatives make them sound. They dearly loved the Church. They were loving and kind people. Father Curren was one of my favorite professors, even though I disagree with his positions. It does not change the fact that I really liked the man. Some of those who stood up for the traditional beliefs of the Church were also some of the meanest and cruelest professors at Catholic University. They derived some sort of a thrill to see how many students they could fail in one semester. They deliberately set out to make their classes and examinations impossible, unless you were of outstanding intelligence and could keep up with them. That’s not very nice either.

However, these folks writing about the dissenting liberals always fail to mention that on the other side, there were some very mean people whose behavior just fueled the fire of the dissenters. Einstein was right. There is such a thing as relativity.

The saints were often in the middle working very quietly. Two of my favorite professors will always be Joseph Ratzinger and Thomas Dubay. They were orthodox, intelligent, respectful, honest, fair, kind, and guided their students without bullying them.

Unlike the dissenters, they guided us down the right path. Unlike the orthodox, they treated us like what we were, amateurs in theology and philosophy. They expected as much as they gave. They helped us to get there.

However, if I had to choose between one of the dissenters and some of the orthodox professors of theology of the time, the dissenters would have me in their class hands down. You see, I can always argue against a dissenter. I can always reason my way through his or her errors. But there is no way to engage with someone whom you hate, because he treats you like dirt. You don’t want to reason your way through anything. You just want to get away as far as possible.

I find it sad that in Traddom, it has become so easy to forget that the orthodox priests, sisters and theologians of the mid-twentieth century included some of the most arrogant people in the Church at the time. They were partially to blame for the discontent among many Catholics. It was hard to take them seriously, when you were aware that they believed one thing and behaved to the contrary.

I even entered religious life at the age of 17 and left it at the age of 30. Got married, fathered three children, was widowed and re-entered again when my children were independent adults.

I left religious life, because of the turmoil. I was able to raise a Catholic family despite the turmoil. And I was able to come back, because I learned to think my way through the turmoil.

It was clearly an era where balance was lost. However, for those of us who knew how to think, it was an exciting time to be alive and to be Catholic. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I wouldn’t be who I am had it not been for that experience. I saw both sides very clearly and had to do some serious thinking to stay afloat.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Wow, Brother JR, thanks for the very enlightening personal account. You had our Pope as one of your professors??

I understand what you are saying about the personality of professors being very important. But isn’t that the danger of any revolutionary movement? The leaders of such movements can seem very charismatic and can hold people under their sway with that charisma. All cult leaders seem to carry that sort of charm and confidence. And perhaps it is the excitement that surrounds iconoclasm…Tearing down societal structures is a heady thing.

Unfortunately, most of the people affected by these revolutionary movements DON’T have the intelligence to reason correctly, as you did. Instead, we have to struggle along being swept up in the tide of whatever overtakes our society or particular aspects of it. We’re not in the universities parrying ideas with future Popes.

These dissenters also helped many homosexual priests to get into seminaries, didn’t they? Thus wreaking havoc from the inside and causing the molestation horrors that still haunt the Church. That’s the way I heard it - that we can trace these scandals directly back to heretical influences from the 1960’s that destroyed the standards for entering seminary and deliberately allowed homosexual men into the priesthood. The penny dropped for me when I realized it was yet another aspect of the 1960’s Baby Boomer’s destruction of our society that continues to affect new generations 50 years later.

Your personal story reminds me of a man I saw on “The Journey Home.” He’d been a Protestant minister, married, with 3 kids, and after his wife died, eventually became a Catholic priest. I think that’s absolutely wonderful.

Thank you for your response to my post!

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I think the timing and age of the abusers unfortunately spreads the responsibility beyond possible homosexuals entering seminary in the 60s or 70s. There are too many incidents that happened in the 60s (and late 50s) by men who were already priests. Yes, there was perhaps a homosexual element to it (I haven’t read all the conclusions of the John Jay reports), but part of it was definately a power issue. All rape and abuse has that element - that the abuser has power over the other person and uses it for harm.

I was “saved” from being swept up in that issue by being outside the US for parts of that time and being a typical lukewarm young adult for most of it, so that while I understood it was a bad time, I wasn’t following the story closely enough to really take in the horror of it.

I think our best course of action now is to do exactly what this thread is about - BE good Christians and Catholics, pray for those involved, and strive to see the God-given dignity in the abused and also the abusers. In some cases, those who are doing something go off too far in the direction of saying the abusers are monsters and evil who have no rights or claim on our mercy at all. I realize that I am so far untouched by the scandal so it is easy for me to speak, but we are commanded to pray for those who persecute us.

 

[maltmom]

What size did you have in mind?

I’ll get back to you on that.

The Holy Spirit has very strange ways of working. As it says in my personal motto, “Deus eligit stultus.”

Deus officina in mysterious mores.

 

[TimothyH]

Nothing really to add here except that this is one of the best threads I have read in a long time.

-Tim-

 

[iloveangels]

One of the biggest problems in this regard is that there is so much confusion about roles in the Church.

There are things best suited to the laity but they don’t want to do them–rather, they want to act like clergy and religious. There are things best suited to the clergy, but many of them would rather act like the laity and don’t clear up the confusion between them and consecrated religious–something most Catholics are completely confused about. Consecrated religious are getting rare and at least one of the factors there is that what they are supposed to do and be has been made indistinct for possible inquirers–many of them look and live very much like the laity, and so people say things like “if he’s not a priest, what’s the point?.” You’ve addressed this many times, Br JR.

Add to that the situation in the States where people only go down to their local parish for mass and what they see on Sunday morning is all they really see of the Church most of the time. Even their Catholic school teachers are usually laity and these schools look very much like prep schools. The whole thing is a problem and out of whack. We need all three states of life, their roles need to be clarified, and they need to work in cooperation and respect for each other.

 

[Lormar]

Sweetie, we cal them cells not caves. I happen to live in one and am very happy to never come out . . . trust me. I should have become a Carthusian. Just think about it, an entire life without ever knowing what’s going on in the greater Church or the rest of the world for that matter and the joy of not caring either. I have a good friend who is a Carthusian. The last time I visited him was when the sex abuse scandal broke out. He had no idea and had no interest in it either. His answer was so simple and yet so profound.

“I can do more from here than you guys will ever do on site.” He is right.

He is, and I am glad I read this. I wasn’t following this thread.

I feel the same way - it does no good to have to know everything that is going on either in the world or in the Church. Has anything changed? Are we not sinners? There are no new sins under the sun.

 

[iloveangels]

…
It is this last part that radical traditionalists can’t accept. The religious life does not exist for the purposes of the laity. It exists to give witness to what God wants the laity to see, not what the laity wants to look at. There is a difference.

The interesting part is that real progressives can’t stand it either. They keep wanting to make us into an army of social workers for the sake of social work. Because that’s what they “want to look at.” But that’s not the point either.

This sentence that you wrote here is actually a key point for the Secular Franciscans. We have a terrible time understanding what it is to be “Franciscan leaven” in the world, which is what we’re supposed to be. We’re not supposed to espouse particular causes and go after them as our life’s work, like a bunch of focused crusaders on particular causes. Rather, we’re supposed to show people what it is to value life, live as if everything depended on God’s providence, and see God in everything. What we do with our hands, to support causes, matters much less than that we live the Franciscan life. And for the third order–that we live it in our own lives–outside of an enclosure where people can see us and hear us. People need to know that God is good, and God is around because his fingerprints are on everything and everyone. Although it can be abused, there is hope, there is goodness, there is faith and these things are all found in God. People need to see this. So many despair because they’ve lost their view of what is real and genuine in life.

Actually, much has been made about the fact that the Franciscans changed the world and helped to do away with feudalism. This kind of thing is the “steam” behind the claims that we should change the world. However, in the 13th-14th centuries, Franciscans didn’t come out of the gate wanting to change the world in this way, so much as they were determined to live out their lives in this new way of life, and they had a very clear image of what this way of life was. If Franciscans return simply to what they are called to BE, instead of what they think they are called to DO, amazing things can happen. WE don’t have to be the army. We’ve actually never been the army. Our clothes don’t even match.

 

[JReducation]

The interesting part is that real progressives can’t stand it either. They keep wanting to make us into an army of social workers for the sake of social work. Because that’s what they “want to look at.” But that’s not the point either.

This sentence that you wrote here is actually a key point for the Secular Franciscans. We have a terrible time understanding what it is to be “Franciscan leaven” in the world, which is what we’re supposed to be. We’re not supposed to espouse particular causes and go after them as our life’s work, like a bunch of focused crusaders on particular causes. Rather, we’re supposed to show people what it is to value life, live as if everything depended on God’s providence, and see God in everything. What we do with our hands, to support causes, matters much less than that we live the Franciscan life. And for the third order–that we live it in our own lives–outside of an enclosure where people can see us and hear us. People need to know that God is good, and God is around because his fingerprints are on everything and everyone. Although it can be abused, there is hope, there is goodness, there is faith and these things are all found in God. People need to see this. So many despair because they’ve lost their view of what is real and genuine in life.

Actually, much has been made about the fact that the Franciscans changed the world and helped to do away with feudalism. This kind of thing is the “steam” behind the claims that we should change the world. However, in the 13th-14th centuries, Franciscans didn’t come out of the gate wanting to change the world in this way, so much as they were determined to live out their lives in this new way of life, and they had a very clear image of what this way of life was. If Franciscans return simply to what they are called to BE, instead of what they think they are called to DO, amazing things can happen. WE don’t have to be the army. We’ve actually never been the army. Our clothes don’t even match.

We get sidetracked by what needs to be done. It’s important to pay attention to what needs to be done and to do it.

To define ourselves by what we do is very dangerous. As I said before, this is what has led to the culture of death. Such definitions are the root of relativism.

Take for example another thread that’s going on here, in which I should have never opened my mouth. TOO LATE . . . a thread on married clergy coming from other faiths.

If one reads through that thread, everyone is concerned about how much these priests can give to the parish. In other words, no one has the guts to say, “I’m concerned about what I can get from these priests, because I can’t compete with their wives and children.” Instead, people disguise the concern and make it look altruistic. They do such a good job that they convince themselves that they’re concerned about the good of the Church. Not even God can change what they have chosen to think.

The fact is that not a single poster on that thread has addressed the fact that “a priest is a priest” regardless of how much or how little he does in a parish. We should be happy that God calls men to the ministerial priesthood.

No one has addressed the fact that these men have been called by Christ. They have all danced around the subject that the Church has chosen to ordain these men who are not even cradle Catholics. How dare the Church do this to us?

Let’s forget that Christ calls them. Let’s forget that they have been chosen and focus on what they can’t give us, because they have to give it to their wives. Go figure out how does this mindset reflect real faith and a real understanding of vocation, be it to the religious life, marriage, secular order, priesthood or other. The focus seems to be on the doing and not on being called.

 

[iloveangels]

We get sidetracked by what needs to be done. It’s important to pay attention to what needs to be done and to do it.

To define ourselves by what we do is very dangerous. As I said before, this is what has led to the culture of death. Such definitions are the root of relativism.

Take for example another thread that’s going on here, in which I should have never opened my mouth. TOO LATE . . . a thread on married clergy coming from other faiths.

If one reads through that thread, everyone is concerned about how much these priests can give to the parish. In other words, no one has the guts to say, “I’m concerned about what I can get from these priests, because I can’t compete with their wives and children.” Instead, people disguise the concern and make it look altruistic. They do such a good job that they convince themselves that they’re concerned about the good of the Church. Not even God can change what they have chosen to think.

The fact is that not a single poster on that thread has addressed the fact that “a priest is a priest” regardless of how much or how little he does in a parish. We should be happy that God calls men to the ministerial priesthood.

No one has addressed the fact that these men have been called by Christ. They have all danced around the subject that the Church has chosen to ordain these men who are not even cradle Catholics. How dare the Church do this to us?

Let’s forget that Christ calls them. Let’s forget that they have been chosen and focus on what they can’t give us, because they have to give it to their wives. Go figure out how does this mindset reflect real faith and a real understanding of vocation, be it to the religious life, marriage, secular order, priesthood or other. The focus seems to be on the doing and not on being called.

Part of that is that we’ve been taught to look at exceptions constantly because that’s how the general culture thinks you “prove” things. They’re looking for counterexamples, because no matter how “enlightened” Americans think they are, they operate on the most rudimentary and stupid method of logic there is—mere precedent. Aka, I punched you, therefore, now you can punch me. There is nothing intelligent or new or particularly moral in that. It’s really a very dark and stingy way to think of the world. But people can get stuck solid in it.

I’m an outdoors person. In this part of the country, there’s a kind of deer mouse that does a funny thing that this reminds me of. If you find one of these in the leaves, and if you thrust a stick straight down into the leaves next to it, it will run around and around the stick and it will keep doing it until its panic passes or you lift the stick straight up out of its view. What the mouse is doing is ensuring that it stays far enough from the stick at all times because it’s terrified of the new stick, but this causes it to never get away from the stick! This is what people do too. They get these furors going and run in circles, finding counterexamples and making their terrified squeaks, just like deer mice. Meanwhile, they miss the point entirely, which is to get away from the stick, aka solve the problem by thinking of it in a better, truer way and responding more appropriately.

 

[iloveangels]

We get sidetracked by what needs to be done. It’s important to pay attention to what needs to be done and to do it.

To define ourselves by what we do is very dangerous. As I said before, this is what has led to the culture of death. Such definitions are the root of relativism.

Take for example another thread that’s going on here, in which I should have never opened my mouth. TOO LATE . . . a thread on married clergy coming from other faiths.

If one reads through that thread, everyone is concerned about how much these priests can give to the parish. In other words, no one has the guts to say, “I’m concerned about what I can get from these priests, because I can’t compete with their wives and children.” Instead, people disguise the concern and make it look altruistic. They do such a good job that they convince themselves that they’re concerned about the good of the Church. Not even God can change what they have chosen to think.

The fact is that not a single poster on that thread has addressed the fact that “a priest is a priest” regardless of how much or how little he does in a parish. We should be happy that God calls men to the ministerial priesthood.

No one has addressed the fact that these men have been called by Christ. They have all danced around the subject that the Church has chosen to ordain these men who are not even cradle Catholics. How dare the Church do this to us?

Let’s forget that Christ calls them. Let’s forget that they have been chosen and focus on what they can’t give us, because they have to give it to their wives. Go figure out how does this mindset reflect real faith and a real understanding of vocation, be it to the religious life, marriage, secular order, priesthood or other. The focus seems to be on the doing and not on being called.

There’s one other interesting thing in here too. I’m not sure that people really believe that anyone is “called to become” anything anymore. I mean, I used to teach high school chemistry, and that’s not how people speak of science anymore, even though when I was young it was considered a “calling” to become a scientist. Protestant ministers used to speak of being called into being men of God, too. *

I really think that people have started to believe that they can “do” anything they can afford to do, or that they can get the connections lined up to do, and that’s really all there is to it. It’s whether they want to do it that seems to be counted as the reason for everything, not that they’re called to do it or not. It’s a very American attitude, I think. And a very modern one, because Americans didn’t used to think that way, as recently as the early 20th century. Perhaps affluence and power and our over-reliance on legalistic thinking has done this to us.

In the Catholic world also, I think many mistakes might have been made in the vocational sphere–people entering for the wrong reason, being retained when there were clear signs of no vocation only to be a public problem later, improper selection criteria, bad formation, etc etc, and all this has added to the perception that this stuff is voluntary or not a real divine calling. Along with the marriage situation, which among most Catholics is almost identical to the secular situation. I mean, there’s really very little difference in practice, when you get down to it. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.*

 

[JReducation]

There’s one other interesting thing in here too. I’m not sure that people really believe that anyone is “called to become” anything anymore. I mean, I used to teach high school chemistry, and that’s not how people speak of science anymore, even though when I was young it was considered a “calling” to become a scientist. Protestant ministers used to speak of being called into being men of God, too. *

I really think that people have started to believe that they can “do” anything they can afford to do, or that they can get the connections lined up to do, and that’s really all there is to it. It’s whether they want* to do it that seems to be counted as the reason for everything, not that they’re called to do it or not. It’s a very American attitude, I think. And a very modern one, because Americans didn’t used to think that way, as recently as the early 20th century. Perhaps affluence and power and our over-reliance on legalistic thinking has done this to us.

In the Catholic world also, I think many mistakes might have been made in the vocational sphere–people entering for the wrong reason, being retained when there were clear signs of no vocation only to be a public problem later, improper selection criteria, bad formation, etc etc, and all this has added to the perception that this stuff is voluntary or not a real divine calling. Along with the marriage situation, which among most Catholics is almost identical to the secular situation. I mean, there’s really very little difference in practice, when you get down to it. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.

Your last paragraph is truly packed. I won’t address every detail, because I have to run to prayers in 10 minutes. However, I want to address the issue of marriage.

Many traditionalists and non-traditionalists too, are scandalized by the number of decrees of nullity. We do need to look and make sure that these decrees are valid and not hasty.

However, we also need to look at why there are so many invalid marriages. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Words have meaning. In the past, a man would approach a woman and ask her, “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Observe what he’s asking. He’s asking her to BECOME someone in his life.

Today, men approach women and say, “Will you marry me?”

It’s a very different question. He’s asking her to DO something.

I called my daughter’s fiance on this one. He said, “Brother, I want your permission to ask your daughter to marry me.”

To which I responded, “Absolutely not.”

I thought he was going to have a stroke. He had already purchased the ring. He’s a very good Catholic boy who goes to mass and communion daily, with her actually. They go to confession together every week and Sunday mass, etc. They both made vows of celibacy until marriage . . . you get the picture. What’s there not to like?

But I wanted to drive home a point. After he recovered his voice he asked me why not. I remember saying, “First of all, you started the sentence wrong. You began with ‘I want’ instead of ‘May I,’ I don’t deal well with entitlement.”

“Secondly, you want to ask my daughter to do something for you. It’s not my place to tell her what to do or not do for you. She’s an adult.”

“Third, what do you want her to be for you and you for her?”

 

[iloveangels]

Your last paragraph is truly packed. I won’t address every detail, because I have to run to prayers in 10 minutes. However, I want to address the issue of marriage.

Many traditionalists and non-traditionalists too, are scandalized by the number of decrees of nullity. We do need to look and make sure that these decrees are valid and not hasty.

However, we also need to look at why there are so many invalid marriages. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Words have meaning. In the past, a man would approach a woman and ask her, “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Observe what he’s asking. He’s asking her to BECOME someone in his life.

Today, men approach women and say, “Will you marry me?”

It’s a very different question. He’s asking her to DO something.

I called my daughter’s fiance on this one. He said, “Brother, I want your permission to ask your daughter to marry me.”

To which I responded, “Absolutely not.”

I thought he was going to have a stroke. He had already purchased the ring. He’s a very good Catholic boy who goes to mass and communion daily, with her actually. They go to confession together every week and Sunday mass, etc. They both made vows of celibacy until marriage . . . you get the picture. What’s there not to like?

But I wanted to drive home a point. After he recovered his voice he asked me why not. I remember saying, “First of all, you started the sentence wrong. You began with ‘I want’ instead of ‘May I,’ I don’t deal well with entitlement.”

“Secondly, you want to ask my daughter to do something for you. It’s not my place to tell her what to do or not do for you. She’s an adult.”

“Third, what do you want her to be for you and you for her?”

That’s exactly right. When a man asks a woman for her hand, he should be asking her to join with him to become something new together for a lifetime.

However, if he just wants to marry her so they can do things together, they’re off on the wrong foot already. That’s not what marriage is really about. Marriage is not some kind of joint hobby as long as the fun lasts.

 

[iloveangels]

Your last paragraph is truly packed. I won’t address every detail, because I have to run to prayers in 10 minutes. However, I want to address the issue of marriage.

Many traditionalists and non-traditionalists too, are scandalized by the number of decrees of nullity. We do need to look and make sure that these decrees are valid and not hasty.

However, we also need to look at why there are so many invalid marriages. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Words have meaning. In the past, a man would approach a woman and ask her, “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Observe what he’s asking. He’s asking her to BECOME someone in his life.

Today, men approach women and say, “Will you marry me?”

It’s a very different question. He’s asking her to DO something.

I called my daughter’s fiance on this one. He said, “Brother, I want your permission to ask your daughter to marry me.”

To which I responded, “Absolutely not.”

I thought he was going to have a stroke. He had already purchased the ring. He’s a very good Catholic boy who goes to mass and communion daily, with her actually. They go to confession together every week and Sunday mass, etc. They both made vows of celibacy until marriage . . . you get the picture. What’s there not to like?

But I wanted to drive home a point. After he recovered his voice he asked me why not. I remember saying, “First of all, you started the sentence wrong. You began with ‘I want’ instead of ‘May I,’ I don’t deal well with entitlement.”

“Secondly, you want to ask my daughter to do something for you. It’s not my place to tell her what to do or not do for you. She’s an adult.”

“Third, what do you want her to be for you and you for her?”

Marriage is really about two people joining their lives together to start something entirely new together, which will cause them to become something different together throughout their lifetimes than they would have been otherwise. It’s the big fork in the road. The power and meaning of this cannot be underestimated. It touches both people mutually right down to who they fundamentally are, and will be throughout their lives, if they have a real marriage. They form a new household, a new entity of basic social life, a new cell of humanity, a new mini-community within the Church. This is why it’s done in prayer for believers and this is why it’s a sacrament and as much a vocation as any of the others people usually think of when they think “vocation.” It’s not just something to do.

 

[october_baby]

Nothing really to add here except that this is one of the best threads I have read in a long time.

-Tim-

 

[JReducation]

Talk about utilitarian, I had an interesting exchange with one of our novices, which I want to share as an example of how utilitarian we have become.

We needed ink for the printer. Brother told the superior of the house that there is a deal that if you buy this larger cartridge that costs about $20 more you will save money, because it lasts twice as long as the regular cartridge or some such thing like that.

The superior said that they would buy the ordinary cartridge and the novice asked why. To which the superior responded, “Because a poor man does not have that kind of money to spend on ink cartridges.”

The novice was upset, because he felt that saving money by buying the larger cartridge is in keeping with poverty. The superior told him to buy the regular cartridge, which he did.

Last night, after class he asked to speak to me. He was upset because he had been ordered to buy the smaller cartridge, which he said would run out sooner and they would have to buy another.

I had to explain to him what the superior said. The deal sounds like a good one. However, if a man offers you a pig for $100.00 and all you have in your pocket is $100 dollars, can you buy two pigs on sale for $125.00?

He agreed that you could not. I explained, this is the way that the poor man lives. He can’t save money, because he doesn’t have money to save. He said to me, “But Father, that’s not practical.”

That’s when I started to chuckle and said, “My son, if the Gospel were practical the hero in the story would not have been crucified.”

 

[Marauder]

Excellent story Brother JR. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Lormar]

He agreed that you could not. I explained, this is the way that the poor man lives. He can’t save money, because he doesn’t have money to save.

How true that is. Only those who have money can take advantage of money saving deals. The rest of us have to pass them by simply because we don’t have the money to spend in order to save.