A Godly Man in an Ungodly Age
"To govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."
With those brave, wise, simple words, Benedict XVI announced an end of his papacy. How stands the Church he has led for eight years?
While he could not match the charisma of his predecessor, John Paul II, his has been a successful papacy. He restored some of the ancient beauty and majesty to the liturgy. He brought back to the fold separated Anglican brethren. The Church is making converts in sub-Saharan Africa. And in America, new traditionalist colleges and seminaries have begun to flourish.
That is looking back eight years. Looking back half a century, to that October day in 1962 when Pope John XXIII declared the opening of Vatican II, the Church appears to have been in a decline that, in parts of the world, seems to be leading to near extinction.
At Vatican II, the Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, was among the reformers who were going to bring the church into the modern world. The encounter did not turn out well.
In 1965, three in four American Catholics attended Sunday mass. Today, it is closer to one in four. The number of priests has fallen by a third, of nuns by two-thirds. Orders like the Christian Brothers have virtually vanished. The Jesuits are down to a fraction of their strength in the 1950s.
Parochial schools teaching 4.5 million children in the early 1960s were teaching a third of that number at the end of the century. Catholic high schools lost half their enrollment. Churches have been put up for sale to pay diocesan debts.
And the predator-priest sex-abuse scandal, with the offenses dating back decades, continues to suppurate and stain her reputation and extract billions from the Sunday collections of the abiding faithful.
The highest-ranking Catholic politicians, Vice President Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, support same-sex marriage and belong to a party whose platform calls for funding abortions to the day of birth. Catholic teaching on contraception, divorce and sexual morality is openly mocked.
Yet, while colleges like Georgetown appear Catholic in name only, others—like Christendom in Front Royal, Va., St. Thomas More in Merrimack, N.H, and St. Thomas Aquinas near Los Angeles—have picked up the torch.
Among Catholics, there has long been a dispute over the issue: Did Vatican II cause the crisis in the Church, or did the council merely fail to arrest what was an inevitable decline with the triumph of the counterculture of the 1960s?
As one looks around the world and back beyond the last half-century, it seems that Catholicism and Christianity have been in a centuries-long retreat. In the mid-19th century, Matthew Arnold wrote in "Dover Beach":
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar ...
In Christianity's cradle, the Holy Land and the Near East, from Egypt to Afghanistan, Christians are subjected to persecution and pogroms, as their numbers dwindle. In Latin America, the Church has been losing congregants for decades.
In Europe, Christianity is regarded less as the founding faith of the West and the wellspring of Western culture and civilization, than as an antique; a religion that European Man once embraced before the coming of the Enlightenment. Many cathedrals on the continent have taken on the aspect of Greek and Roman temples—places to visit and marvel at what once was, and no longer is.
The Faith is Europe, Europe is the Faith, wrote Hilaire Belloc. And when the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people die. So historians and poets alike have written.
Surely that seems true in Europe. In the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Western Man, under the banners of God and country, conquered almost the entire world. But now that Christianity has died in much of the West, the culture seems decadent, the civilization in decline.
And the people have begun to die. No Western nation has had a birth rate in three decades that will enable its native-born to survive.
Dispensing with Christianity, Western peoples sought new gods and new faiths: communism, Leninism, fascism, Nazism. Those gods all failed.
Now we have converted to even newer faiths to create paradise in this, the only world we shall ever know. Democratic capitalism, consumerism, globalism, environmentalism, egalitarianism.
The Secular City seems to have triumphed over the City of God. But in the Islamic world, an ancient and transcendental faith is undergoing a great awakening after centuries of slumber and seems anxious to re-engage and settle accounts with an agnostic West.
As ever, the outcome of the struggle for the world is in doubt.
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Pat writes : "But in the Islamic world, an ancient and transcendental faith is undergoing a great awakening after centuries of slumber and seems anxious to re-engage and settle accounts with an agnostic West.
As ever, the outcome of the struggle for the world is in doubt."
It is worth noting that the stated reason for yesterday's consistory was to talk about some candidates for sanctity and only in addition to this did the Holy Father read his resignation statement. One of those candidates under consideration was Antonio Primaldo and the other 800+ martyrs who died in 1480 at Otranto.
He and his companions were killed by an invading army of Turks because they refused to renounce their Christian faith and become Muslims. Pat Buchanan said decades ago that it will become more and more difficult for the Western world to fight a great faith with no faith at all.
PS. And yes, Virginia, believing anything is alot like believing in nothing. There are "metrics" even in matters of faith and morals. By all accounts we first lost our faith ( the religion that European Man once embraced before the coming of the Enlightenment) and only recently our minds.
Notice that Mr. Buchanan doesn't say that Islam is growing. From some cursory Googling and my reading of the work of Chronicles columnist Philip Jenkins, I'm under the impression that it is impossible to say with any certainty that Islam is growing either more or more quickly than Christianity. I'm also inclined to think that the great awakening Mr. Buchanan sees is far less religious than political, less transcendent than quintessentially worldly. Christianity in the West is declining, has been since the Renaissance, at the latest. The primarily Western wars and aggressions of the twentieth century may constitute the most damaging blow of all against Christianity. Who would follow the Cross into battle any more? How many believe instead that for the Cross to lead the 7th, or the 69th, or the marines on the offensive is obscene and blasphemous?
"inclined to think that the great awakening Mr. Buchanan sees is far less religious than political, less transcendent than quintessentially worldly."
Well of course we would think that because we view all religious movements in political and worldy terms, including our own. It is, afterall, our only measure of "values" . Our Kingdom of Heaven is when secularism inspire politics and science, the future. American believers, for the most part, have more in common with old school Deists and Star Trek junkies than any revealed Christian tradition.
In Europe, Christianity is regarded less as the founding faith of the West and the wellspring of Western culture and civilization, than as an antique; a religion that European Man once embraced before the coming of the Enlightenment. Many cathedrals on the continent have taken on the aspect of Greek and Roman temples—places to visit and marvel at what once was, and no longer is.
This is how American tourists view Christianity in Europe, and indeed it is how European media, academic and center-left elites wish for the world to see Europe. What you don't and won't read about in the Guardian or Le Monde is the very vibrant remnant of the old society, not just in "traditionalist" Tridentine parishes but almost everywhere there are practicing Catholics. We eat, we drink, we laugh, we attend Mass, we spend time with our families and we reproduce at well above the replacement level. That "other" Europe is killing itself off, and that is unfortunate, but the heirs of the old Christian society are alive and well and are not a "quaint relic" as even many traditionalist Americans might imagine.
I'm also inclined to think that the great awakening Mr. Buchanan sees is far less religious than political, less transcendent than quintessentially worldly.
One of the biggest problems with comparative religion is that it is a Western discipline that grew out of [the remnants of] Christianity and tends to graft a post-Reformation confessional-label view of religious adherence. The various religious systems of the world did not, until globalization caused them to begin doing so, see themselves as religions in the same way that Christianity does. It is not just that Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Orthodox all agree on the doctrine of the Incarnation and other systems do not. It has to do with what the religion is geared toward and what societal mentality it serves and/or imposes.
Indeed, if we were to categorize the world's religions sociologically, we would find Islam is the closest to Christianity and yet is still light years away. Old rhetoric of Caeseropapism has nothing on the Islamic caliphate. An Islamic Awakening cannot be any less political than spiritual due to the very nature of Islam. (Certain forms of Christianity, notably the Puritan strains of Calvinism, have been similar to Islam in their temporal aims, but this tendency remains the decidedly non-orthodox position within Christianity.)
I agree with Pat. However, there is the troubling Stepinac matter that needs review.
Robert--I didn't say "we" are inclined to think. I wrote "I'm". I'll expand by saying that I'm inclined to think there's nothing religious behind what we perceive as an Islamic movement. The worldwide jihad isn't about winning souls (if Muslims believe in souls), it's about grabbing wealth, land, and power. That Islam certainly tries to merge religion and politics is merely very convenient. Jihadism is no more religious--in the sense that Christianity is religious--concerned with ultimate things and meanings--than Communism, and it will probably fail for the same reason, that it can't deliver on its promises of earthly paradise.
Robert--I must add that I take your point about what "we" are inclined to think, however.
Ray,
Hold those thoughts and we can discuss them further after Easter. I don't think we have a "religious right" in America. What we have is an emotional right, a silly right, a useful right, a decadent right that the left loves to call religious, etc. I agree with you about everything or almost everything dicussed on the internet. And even if I didn't, I would never say it as I treasure your friendship more than any issues being discussed here . I am attempting my most challenging penance ever on this Ash Wednesday of 2013 ----- I am going to try and SHUT MY INTERNET MOUTH for forty days. Pray for me. After Easter .....
In the Beatitudes as recorded by St. Matthew, our Lord tells us that the highest blessing is to be persecuted for His name's sake. Certainly, Pope Benedict XVI has reached this level of Christian living; for he has been hounded by the enemies of Christ both within and without the Church. The liberal media in Germany are howling with "Schadenfreude" over his announcement. My daddy, echoing in his own earthy way our Lord's words, asserted that a man without enemies was not worth a damn. There were those in our community who rumored that our family, Sand-Hill Southern Baptist, were secret Papists because our closest friends in the community were Roman Catholics. Sometime prior to his death, my father stated that he really liked "that Ratzinger," having read of him in the local paper or perhaps in U.S. News and World Report which my father eventually gave up reading when he determined that it had "become too liberal." I shared my father's understanding of Benedict XVI. As a layman, I offer my prayers for him and express my gratitude to him for his grounding inspiration for us Christians in faith communities outside the Roman Catholic Church.
Benedict XVI has indeed been a successful pope, and I too, as an outsider to the Catholic church, am grateful that he did manage to steer the church as well as he has done. One bedrock of our civilisation, at least, had a competent and holy man at the helm for the last eight years.
As for Islam, looking at it in Christian-like terms, it seems rather more like a Puritan-descended social gospel of the type that grew up during the 19th century than anything else. As social gospel is doomed to fail in the long run even if successful in the short run to the point of conquering all enemies, so too with Islam.
While we fret over declining birth rates in the West, I have read somewhere that birth rates in the Moslem world are not really all that healthy either, especially, if memory serves, in Saudi Arabia. I haven't looked into this claim yet, so there's no telling how much truth there is to it.
Robert--I shall hold thee in the Light, as we Quakers say.
As for Islam, looking at it in Christian-like terms, it seems rather more like a Puritan-descended social gospel of the type that grew up during the 19th century than anything else. As social gospel is doomed to fail in the long run even if successful in the short run to the point of conquering all enemies, so too with Islam.
I would say Islam is more like the original Puritanism than its bastard offshoots, but as with all comparisons and metaphors one should not search too deeply. Puritanism is a particular corruption of Christianity and had begun to give way to the Social Gospel in a matter of about two centuries. Islam has endured more or less unchanged for over 1,400 years. The only thing that has changed has been the degree to which converted populations have been Islamized. (There remain a number of Turkic tribes who exercise their indigenous liquor-distillation customs... for now.)
Mr. Moses, this is good to hear. I apologize for pushing further off topic, but would you comment on how this thriving, Catholic remnant is educating their kids? Are parishes running schools with tuitions (as it is done mostly now in the U.S.)? Or through the donation baskets (as was done not too long ago in my time)? Or are they integrating into public or other private schools?
Mr. McCabe: speaking broadly, most Catholic parents are doing a good job of ensuring their children will keep the Faith. Those families which have not have already largely been lost; the Church's losses, contrary to what is assumed in the "press," have mostly bottomed out in France at any rate.
There is not a single answer to the question of what sorts of schools children attend, though most decent parents seem healthily aware that education is about much more than "'facts' one hears from a teacher in a classroom," even if most parents (regrettably, in my view) find the idea of "un-schooling" unfathomable.
Mr. Moses, I am guessing faithful French Catholics in general preserve gender roles in opposition to modern egalitarianism. Or has there been an attempt to define a "Catholic" feminism as has been done in the United States?
Or has there been an attempt to define a "Catholic" feminism as has been done in the United States?
Has there been an attempt? Absolutely. Is it at all acceptable in the circles I move in? Not really, but I might be a bit sheltered.
Would those be circles linked to the "traditionalists"? As you may know, in the U.S., the traditionalists are likely to reject Catholic "feminism" in thought and practice, for the most part, while it is the "conservatives" who are generally more accepting of it.
This is a deeply touching article. Good work, Mr. Buchanan. The lack of faith and the hatred of God by many does sadden me.
I tend to move in circles that, on the surface, would be considered more "conservative" than "traditionalist." Psychologically they veer toward the latter, though. Part of it is cultural: the French and the Italians have a very particular "macho" element in the male psychology. On the one hand differences between the sexes are (traditionally) acknowledged and even celebrated; on the other, it is not a "chest-thumping, muscle-flexing" orangutan sort of masculinity and there is from the American point of view a very pervasive "Mommy problem" in terms of young men not knowing how to get things done around the house, etc.