Monday, December 13, 2004
TRADITIONALISM AND PAPAL COMMENTARY
There has been an interesting discussion going on over the weekend at Dom's blog. under the heading "Not this reality." I wanted to add some comments, but it gets complicated putting them into the comments box which is much more accommodating to short posts.
A poster named Rodney made the argument for Tradition that has been made for 40 years. Not only have Catholics been aware of the argument, I presume so have others outside the Church been aware of this argument. It gets in the way for those who oppose the Church, and ultimately the leader of the opposition is the Prince of This World. The Catholic Tradition is such a fortress against heresy that a way must be found around it if the Church is to be overcome.
Reducing the faith to just one of many is a useful step on the way toward eliminating Her. Thus it is an objective of liberalism, and we have United Religions Initiative on the left. It doesn't take much to see the unacceptability of URI, encompassing as it does Wicca, Theosophy, Paganism, Oriental Religions, Islam, Judaism, and just about anything else that can possibly be called religion. This is not working out quite as planned. Tradition is still keeping many Catholics grounded in the faith. The Pope is not cooperating with URI. So now what? If you are coming from the perspective that Roman Catholicism must be destroyed, what do you do next?
One possible next step is to take a step back, and thus a conservative posture--the posture of the right. If Traditionalism is the fortress of the Catholics, then adopt Traditionalism. Talk about it, encourage it, structure it in such a way that even the Catholics will have no solid ground for objection to what you are saying. Even the Lodges can talk about "Masonic Traditionalism," and they do. (In fact I know of one Ordo Templi Orientis website that mentions tradition as well. It also talks about their opposition to the Church, and their devotion to Lucifer. Their tradition is that of the Cathars. They are very much attuned to myths of the holy grail.)
Once Tradition is established as not just the province of Roman Catholics, talk can commence about unity through differences. To facilitate this, conferences can be held to discuss the tradition in each religion. Here there can be a search for a common ground on which all religions can stand. Discover it in mysticism where there is no inconvenient dogma to deal with. In fact such a conference took place at the University of South Carolina, in 2001. The book _Paths to the Heart_, a book in the Perennial Philosophy Series of Wisdom World publishers, is a collection of the talks presented at the conference.
What if the Roman Catholics object? What can be done if they insist that Jesus Christ is God? Then the Catholics can be branded as divisive, and interfering with the peace process, because all of this effort to find common ground is really being done to promote world peace. Now the Catholics are the bad guys. Now you have a situation where all of the religions of the world oppose Catholicism together. All of the other religions have found "unity in their separate Traditions", but the Catholics are refusing to join. They don't seem to get it. All Traditions are valuable. All Traditions must be upheld. Which means that conversions work against the peace process.
The designers of this formula thought they could eliminate the occult by this method. But they will discover that when the occult wants in, claiming the perennial philosophy, and they refuse to allow the occult into this new clique, they have reinvented religious warfare. To avoid the warfare, they will have to allow the occult to come in, or their purpose is self-defeating.
An argument can be made that the Church Fathers are welcome in this new unity in differences. Fr. Kallistos Ware was a speaker at the above-cited conference. At one point he cited the Gospel of Thomas as evidence for what he was proposing. When the Roman Catholics object to this new strategy to promote world peace, the perennialists can counter that opposition with the evidence for the compatibility with Christianity by citing the Orthodox approval. The Church Fathers can be brought to bear on the Roman Catholics. They are not being asked to join some kind of universal religion. All that is asked is that they acknowledge other Traditions as their own is acknowledge.
Catholics, of course, cannot do this. We cannot say that Mohammed is no different from Jesus. We cannot see Jesus as just another prophet among many prophets. Allah is not a Trinitarian God. Oriental religions tend to be pantheistic. But to claim that Jesus is unique and the Catholic faith holds a fullness of truth that is lacking in all other religions is to work contrary to that unity which the others believe will bring peace.
This, I believe, is where the emerging movement of Traditionalism will lead. It will so water down the Catholic argument for Traditionalism that those who cling to it will be seen as marginal. The social gospel will be given pride of place. An argument of social justice can be applied from within the Church to encourage the acceptance of all other religious Traditions.
Isn't this, in fact, the way the Holy Father is leading us by his sometimes quite peculiar papal Masses and prayer services? Isn't this, in fact, the message of the elevation of Cardinal Law to "keeper of the keys" to one of the four most important basilicas in Rome, after the outrageous scandal in Boston, and his kissing of the Koran? I see that elevation as a reward for that kiss.
The actions of our Pope and those who support ecumenism/interreligious dialogue seem to present to us two beliefs:
1. Jesus Christ is Son of God and Lord of the World who will return in Glory. The Catholic Faith is unique among world religions.
2. God has provided some absolute truth in all religions, and we should go looking for it outside of our faith. Ecumenism trumps evangelization.
These two ideas make God schizophrenic. On one hand He tells us Catholicism is all we need, and is His religion of choice. Then He hides some of His truth in places outside of the faith and expects us to search there until we find it.
The two ideas are mutually contradictory, and yet they are both moving ahead within the Catholic Church with a Papal blessing for each of them. It's not working, as the upheaval shows us. Too many Catholics are feeling deceived by this approach.
In fact Cardinal Ratzinger says much the same thing in his newest book _Truth and Tolerance_, in the last chapter titled "Religions and the Question of Truth." In that chapter he discusses the perennial philosophy which is what lies behind Guenonian Traditionalism, demonstrating that this approach will lead us to the position that there is no goodness in the world because ultimate truth is denied. Without an ultimate standard for goodness, we are left with nothing but utilitarianism. Though Cardinal Ratzinger doesn't say it, it is utilitarianism that fuels the arguments for abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia.
In fact Cardinal Ratzinger even uses the word "schizophrenia" in his comments. Speaking of the philosophy of an Egyptologist named Assmann, he says:
Assmann himself showed how this schizophrenia led to a fiction defended by the state: for the uninitiated the gods remained as entities necessary to maintain the state, while the initiated could see through them as nonentities. (p. 221)
That is where we will end up if we take up the perennial philosophy of Traditionalism. There will be those "in the know" who believe that there really is no truth, thus no religion, and thus no God; and those second-class citizens of the religious realm who are "true believers." Hitler was able to make political capital out of this. May God save us from going there again!
