Essay: Wayward from righteousness

[Elijah_Baley]

Draft of a blog post submitted for your feedback and criticism. What do you think?

At the core of every heresy[sup]1[/sup], at the spark or in the first impulse, there is some understandable, and sometimes laudable, desire. Though all heresies distort some truth at the expense of others, some simplify the truth while others exaggerate a truth. What man tired of mystery isn’t tempted to want a simpler truth better understood, and what man enamored with a point of truth is not tempted to ignore other truths for the sake of his beloved?

Today, simplification of truth is sometimes called modernism. Laughingly so, it must be hoped — accomodationists, seeking to smooth out the hard teachings of the church with a wink or a shrug, have haunted the Church in every age[sup]2[/sup], right back to the Arians[sup]3[/sup]. Because these Sadducees let fashion or politeness trump truth for the sake of peace, they forget the truth which sustains them; therefore, this sect dies and is forgotten[sup]4[/sup].

More sympathetic by far, and therefore more dangerous, is the love of truth. It is not for the hatred of the Church or Christ or the truth that the most dangerous heresies arise, but by obsession with a truth at the expense of others. Not only this, but frequently it is the same love of truth and hatred of scandal which causes the most lingering schisms from the Church. Take these three: In the early Church was donatism, in the Middle Ages were the reformers, and in this age exists some forms of traditionalism[sup]5[/sup].

In all three, indignation, whatever forms it later took, began as righteous, often laudable indignation. As with the donatists before him and the SSPX after him, Luther rightly protested the scandal of Christian sin reflected by the destruction, loss, or widespread ignorance of authentic Christian piety[sup]6[/sup]. **Luther would be easier to dismiss if he were always wrong; it is the central drama of Luther that he was sometimes right. **

Yet when yells yield to shouts and tempers take no prisoners even men against error will finally oppose truth. Luther began protesting clerical abuse and ended by protesting clerics. He began by denouncing Tetzel and ended by denouncing Peter. So it is when righteous indignation falls to self-righteous impatience: Your theories and tracts spiral out of control, and you end up saying such nonsense that only your partisans will believe you. Heretics don’t know when to stop.

And yet, once you shock the crowd into silence, your heart races. Blood of the man before you pours from his nose and drips from your fist; what has been done cannot be undone. There is only the cavalry charge or the white flag of surrender. Yield now and you not only show yourself wrong. Yield, and you show your gut instinct wrong.

But your gut instinct is right! What is more, you do not want to betray your original gut instinct that, if cooler heads had prevailed, your opponent should have agreed with. Instead of admitting fault, admitting excess, you charge ahead. Hesitatingly at first, but then with practiced gusto: That means nothing! or It’s an epistle of straw! You pound your chest when you should have offered a mea culpa.

Such is what happens when men who champion the truth forget themselves, thinking themselves paragons of truth. In speaking the truth you are noble; in thinking you speak only truth, you become ignoble.

1. 
   *]Indignation;
   *]Impatience;
   *]Rationalization; and
   *]Obstinance.
   
   Essentially, the tragedy of Luther is not that he was a demon but that he was not. He was not so much a bad man from the start, but an intemperate one who, fighting for a good cause, fought too far, denounced a true thing, and either did not know it or would not admit it. Donatists of every age suffer a similar temptation.
   
   Moral of the story: **Apply this to some of the folks who say some silly things in defense of old, good things. **In appealing to rules, they are usually not lovers of rules but lovers of the liturgy, lovers of the Mass, adorers of Christ. They are the loyalists[sup]7[/sup], embittered against rebels, and of a generation who does not remember mumbled Latin and the low, low Mass but rather remembers sand in the holy water font.
   
   How do you do this? Counter indignation with righteousness, impatience with patience, rationalization with reason, and obstinance with the love of truth. This is, of course, a very long way to say a very old, very Christian teaching: **Love them with the love of Christ, for if wayward they are often from righteousness; even they are not without some truth. **

 

[Elijah_Baley]

Notes:

[sup]1. [/sup]Heresy: False doctrine. Usually truth falsely emphasized at the expense of other truth. Heretic: One who holds heresy. (This is not the canonical definition but the colloquial definition of heretic. Canonically, one has to hold heresy and know it to be false to be, canonically, a heretic.)

[sup]2. [/sup]This is to say, modernism’s mood or attitude antedates our present age. Modernism as a technical term does refer to a particular branch of nonsense uniquely in our present age.

[sup]3. [/sup]Arians themselves were not defeated but for Islam. A better contemporary example would be, perhaps, Christians of what may legitimately be called a modernist theology, who profess, in the famous summation of Niebuhr: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Such congregations can only die off or stop caring.

[sup]4. [/sup]Truth sustains all things which persist; if some lie had no truth it could not linger, even survive.

[sup]5. [/sup]Please note: Donatists, Protestants, and sedevacantists are not here said to be the same gravity of error, or even the same kind of error. Rather, the only point here is that these three all spring from the same righteous impulse and as such have some similarity in fruit. Indeed, there are various degrees of error involved even within various forms of traditionalism, as sedevacantists are obviously more in error than the SSPX, whereas some traditionalists represented by, say, the FSSP are not necessarily in error whatsoever.

[sup]6. [/sup]By way of a thumping irony, Luther was not alone saying this — ignoring for a moment a laundry list of protesters and reformers within the Church who did not schism, consider that The Pardoner’s Tale predates the Reformation by nearly two centuries.

[sup]7.[/sup] Less appropriate would be “old guard,” because these days, they are frequently very young or have young families. These folks would not be liturgically sensitive if they were not liturgically sore.

Thank you for keeping your responses on-topic. Please do not write regarding the rightness or wrongness of the Novus Ordo.

For reference, the topic: Understanding the mindset of certain forms of traditionalism within the Church today.

Subsidiary questions:

• Any links — videos or articles — that would go well with this essay?
• Any art? (Where this essay will be posted, posts use renditions of paintings or photos of statuary to help underscore the themes included.)

 

[MarkThompson]

Today, simplification of truth is sometimes called modernism.

I thought it was Traditional Catholicism that presented simple truths – sì sì, no no – while modernism tried to create complications with all its shades of Hegelian gray for everything.