For a More Manly Catholicism

Edgar Allan Poe mentioned three things, in connection with the Earthly Paradise, or perhaps there were four; I don’t pretend to be a Poe expert. But so far as I remember, they were: life in the open air, the love of a good woman, and the creation of some original form of beauty.

These struck me at the time (I was a teenager, and not yet consciously a Christian) as a useful list, so long as I could choose the location, the girl, and the art.

Of course, location would include the season, with temperature, precipitation, and wind velocities, for I come from Canada where it can be awesomely cold, wet, windy, and uncomfortable if one is not dressed properly.

There are other considerations, and as the reader will immediately see, many are not man-made. Too, other men may have divergent opinions. Fights over Paradise may, alas, easily erupt; indeed, fights even over what we are dreaming.

It is difficult to be laissez-faire about Paradise.

This was never a Christian strategy, however. It is not even a Christian practice to enjoy the good, and suffer through the evil. Nature provides this service, which is built into our very physiology, as it was built into that of dogs and mayflies.

Short – and usually until just short – of death, we have some moral control over our own behavior, and through family and friends some slight influence over the behavior of others. But it is through politics that we form the illusion that we can take more of the decision-making away from God when we disagree with Him.

In the end, however, we may not be consulted on our own fate. Is the world unfair?

We have a gunslinger culture, as one learns by paying attention to “the media.” This gives us the illusion that every gun-toting (or “empowered”) person has the means to change history, even more than with the vote.

It is an illusion because the consequence of a killing – whether as crime or within the scale of a war – can seldom be anticipated.

All the “go back in time and shoot Hitler” scenarios I have audited over the years shared this one easily overlooked feature: each is astoundingly naive. For all you know, you have just made the Nazi party more efficient, by getting rid of its principal liability.

And thus, you have helped the Axis win the war.

The Catholic Church has long been aware that interventions in politics work like this. Those who think that a single clever move, or even a sequence of them, can improve our lives, or even bring Paradise, are, we KNOW, the enemies of prudence.

Instead, things improve when men and women cease being evil, and instead become good. In consequence, we have wisely directed our creative energies to recording and celebrating the Saints, starting, of course, with Saint Jesus.

The “downside” of this isn’t immediately apparent, or rather, is itself an illusion. True, our economy might languish, if people everywhere became Saints, and I could foresee other unfortunate statistical correlations.

But these in turn would be the occasions for more saintly acts, and perhaps the odd miracle. My readers are advised against expecting any specific miracle, however. (I’m not a politician, after all.)

Wisdom and prudence generally warn us against doing anything that will bring about change. It is as the estimable Fr. Frederic William Faber (1814-1863) said. He famously, though perhaps apocryphally, declared himself against all change, including Change For The Better.

This blessed Oratorian was expressly opposed to innovations in theology and the liturgy, and noted that among His majestic qualities there was God’s immutability. Fr. Faber also partook of the divine kindliness, which is why he is safe to follow.

But in recalling the creation of man in God’s image, we must consider God’s manliness.

And in thinking prudently, recall that prudence has multiple aspects. One must consider what could be the consequence if one acts in the way indicated, but also what will happen if one doesn’t act this way.

In other words, one has to act, sometimes. And, within the Christian tradition, one must give an occasional display of manliness.

This was more or less understood, through the generations that preceded modernity. “We” Christians may have stepped wrongly, or awkwardly, God knows, on several occasions. But we did not have a doctrine in opposition to doing anything at all.

To my mind, the Church would be mishandled if she were used to equip soldiers, except for our spiritual battles. It shouldn’t be in our remit to slaughter people. But that does not free us, as it did not free Christ, from the obligation of aggression.

I have been thinking of Iran, as it has been much in the news, lately. How could the Church be more aggressive in Iran?

Crucially, she could read in the news itself that Persians and other Iranians are converting from Islam to Christianity, among other religions, in an unprecedented way.

This is going on soul by soul, Cor ad cor ad cor loquitur, and seems to be happening almost in defiance of our pacifist clergy.

Indeed, if we should be curious, there are among the ten-thousands murdered by the Twelver regime plenty of converted Christians, and we do not know how many Christian Saints.

Perhaps this is a subject for manly research; and to the lengths the U.S. will go, to rescue or even recover the body of an Airman, we as Catholics should be going to the aid of living Christians.

This means risking lives; and risking them means that we may lose a few.  But given the raw fact of our immortality, there is no reason to hesitate.

It is not our job to make a show of our indifference, nor to make fashionable appeals for peace. It is merely embarrassing when agents of the Church shrink from their commitments.