Biblical Interpretation in Crisis

Biblical interpretation (technically called “exegesis”) is in crisis, and before becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger testified to this repeatedly; even giving talks entitled as such.   With biblical interpretation in crisis, it is no wonder that the Church is in crisis and the salvation of souls is not taken as seriously as it should.  For Church leaders to be blind to the true light of Scripture and its unity would be the very definition of the blind leading the blind…and everyone getting lost.  The Church proclaims Doctors for the special light they give to the Church through their holy lives and eminent doctrine.  The Doctors lead us into a deeper penetration of the mystery of Christ; leading us to see and giving us all a greater desire to seek and experience the saving love of Jesus Christ.

At her canonization in 1461, the Pope declared, “No one came close to Saint Catherine without becoming more learned and holy.”  This is because through the Holy Spirit, Jesus was fully alive in her, working his miracles and giving her light to explain the Scriptures.  Not just the physically blind, but the spiritually dead regained their sight.  From heaven, Jesus permitted Catherine, his mystical bride, to share his light with the rest of us.  The light that Christ gave to the world through her in the 14^th Century (1346-1380) shows us what it takes if we want real healing in the Church today.  For this reason the Church in 1970 presented to us her doctrine as having an eminent character for the good of the Church today.

In view of the great mystics who have lived in our own times, like Padre Pio, who showed in themselves and in our times that miracles are real and not myths; in view of the many universally and locally approved Marian apparitions of our times and their accompanying miracles, should not Saint Catherine, a worker of miracles, be heard when she speaks about the right way to read the Scriptures? When she performed great miracles in Christ?  Is not also being a “Doctor of the Church” enough for her to be heard by those who today claim themselves to be learned, experts?  While many ‘experts’ searched only books and followed the methods of the day, she did the most important part; she sought the source of the Scriptures with all her heart and He chose to dwell in her in great power and wisdom. He initiated her more fully than the others into the true depths and unity of the Scriptures because she possessed the Author.

What Christ told Saint Catherine about “The Learned”

When in a vision Christ spoke to Saint Catherine of his desire to send her into the world for its re-evangelization, in humility she asked how and why she, a woman, would be sent when “it is not highly considered by men, and also because it is not good, for decency’s sake, for a woman to mix with men”.[1] Christ’s reply is very telling.  In part, Christ replied:

You must know that in these latter days there has been such an upsurge of pride, especially in the case of men who imagine themselves to be learned or wise, that my justice cannot endure them any longer, without delivering a just chastisement upon them that will bring them to confusion…To confound their arrogance, I will raise up women ignorant and frail by nature but endowed with strength and divine wisdom.  Then, if they will come to their senses and humble themselves, I will behave with the utmost mercy towards them, that is to say, towards those who, according to the grace given them, receive my doctrine, offered them in fragile but specially chosen vessels, and follow it reverently…For indeed it is only just that those who try to exalt themselves should be humbled.[2]

In Saint Catherine’s book, The Dialogue, which God the Father revealed to her during several mystical unions (ecstasies), God speaks to her about interpreting the Scriptures and about “the learned” who lead people astray because they will not interpret Holy Scripture with the light the Holy Spirit gives those who love God more than themselves:

Every light that comes from Holy Scripture has come and still comes from that light.  This is why the foolish, proud, and learned people go blind even though it is light, because their pride and the cloud of selfish love have covered and blotted out this light.  So they read Scripture literally rather than with understanding. They taste only its letter in their chasing after a multiplicity of books, never tasting the marrow of Scripture because they have let go of the light by which Scripture was formed and proclaimed.

…For one cannot share what one does not have in oneself, and because these persons’ life is darksome, they often share the light of Holy Scripture in darkness.  You will find the opposite in my servants, for they share the light within them in hunger and longing for others’ salvation.[3]

According to Saint Catherine, Doctor of the Church, the mark then of the true exegete is zeal for the salvation of souls and so a spirit of sacrifice for others (“hunger and longing”) that they not suffer eternal loss.  The exegete should understand Saint Catherine’s doctrine of “The Bridge” as being a doctrine the Church reaffirms with her; a doctrine that warns if we are not striving forward to realize the power of God to save us, if we are not loving God more than ourselves by seeking how to surrender more fully to him, then we will eventually fall back into sin. The Scriptures themselves are the testimony of God’s power to save us and the words of Scripture are life-giving.  Jesus’ words are spirit and life and essential for learning to surrender to God’s love.

Holy Women to Humble the Arrogant Today

At Vatican II, Mother Church reconfirmed for us Saint Catherine’s admonitions.  It reaffirmed that “Sacred Scripture is to be read and interpreted in the same Spirit by whom it was written” (Dei Verbum, 12.3); “Spirit” being a clear reference for the need to be guided by the Holy Spirit (as the official Latin text makes more clear than some English texts). Following this lead, John Paul the Great also makes the same points that Saint Catherine made concerning how to read the Scriptures. In his “Theology of the Body” (TOB), he references “the Saducees” to make a subtle reminder that the Church continues to ask “Saducees” within and without the Church to learn and know the power of God.  In TOB 65:3 he writes about the Saducees who will not believe in the resurrection of the body and states: “Here Christ meets men who consider themselves experts and competent interpreters of the Scriptures.  Jesus responds to these men  — the Saducees — that mere literal knowledge of Scripture is not enough.  Scripture is above all a means for knowing the power of the living God, who reveals himself in it, just as he revealed himself to Moses in the bush.” [4]

The explosion of Marian apparitions (“the Woman”) these past 150 years, and a predominance of women seers — even young girls! — is easily written-off by “the learned”, just as the learned tried to write-off Saint Catherine in her time. Saint Catherine had daily visions and visitations from God her entire life which the learned theologians mocked as impossible. Still the fruit of many of the modern Marian apparitions, and women mystics, those approved and some still under investigation, is that the faithful are amending their lives en masse despite the “darksome” interpretations of Scripture from many pulpits which deny or mitigate God’s power in the Scriptures.  Through these apparitions and mystics, respecting the pastoral admonitions of the bishops and the Vatican, the faithful are rediscovering the authenticity of the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ miracles and those of the Old Testament.  They are growing in faith and love of Jesus Christ who has become more real to them because of women who point to Jesus instead of to themselves.

Saints and especially the Doctors are themselves living reflections of Christ’s life. Through their lives Christ makes himself more present and understandable to us.  Why not study them if you wish to understand the Scriptures? They are the ones the Church recommends for you to understand things properly.  On this 40^th anniversary of Saint Catherine being made Doctor, it is worth finding her Dialogue and allowing her to make Scripture come alive for you; “that you may know God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent” (John 17:3).

[2] Ibid., 109.

[3]] Saint Catherine, The Dialogue, trans. by Suzanne Noffke, OP, Paulist Press, chap. 85, p. 157.

[4] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, trans. Waldstein, Pauline Books.

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

Wow.   What a surprise.  (Yawn.)   One week before the Pope visits England,  Hawking’s new book is to be released in order that all the citizens of the Queen can know where Britain’s leading and most famous scientist stands on the question of God. Purposeful or accidental, the timing couldn’t be more choice for a culture more in line with Masonry than with the doctrines of Catholic Christianity.  Let’s see if we can do the math:  Britain’s leading scientist suddenly and publicly rejects God; therefore, all Britain is eager to receive a person who claims to be the representative of  God’s eternal  Logos become human?  Yes, England and your media: the rest of the world — at the other end of your nose from which you look down upon us — gets your subtle welcome of the Pope… and we’re hoping for your change of heart.

This seems a teaching moment to offer Dr. Hawking a reminder.  He ignored a tremendous philosopher and theologian once beholden to English universities, a man of extraordinary genius who destroyed Hawking’s reasoning 700 years before a theoretical physicist could even say “Theory of Everything.”  Of course this genius of his epoch is not studied much in England anymore because of a certain former Catholic King who had some difficulties with Christ’s teachings on marriage… serial difficulties, to say the least.  Or maybe I’m  just looking to give Hawking a little wriggle room for why he could be ignorant of Thomas Aquinas’ ancient position on the relation of physical theories to doctrines of creation.  That is to say, why Hawking’s speculations against God are invalid to any lover of wisdom.

How did Aquinas Already Silence Hawking?

A noted Thomist philosopher, William Carroll, draws-out Aquinas’ thought in order to set the record straight on false opposition between creationists and evolutionists, etc. In his article “Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas” Carroll observes:

Aquinas saw no contradiction in the notion of an eternal created universe. He thought that it was a matter of biblical revelation that the world is not eternal. He also thought that reason alone could not conclude whether the world had a temporal beginning. But even if the universe were not to have had a temporal beginning, it still would depend upon God for its very being, its existence. The root sense of creation does not concern temporal origination; rather it affirms metaphysical dependence. For Aquinas, there is no conflict between the doctrine of creation and any physical theory.

Theories in the natural sciences account for change. Whether the changes described are cosmological or biological, unending or finite, they remain processes. Creation accounts for the existence of things, not for changes in things. An evolving universe, just like Aristotle’s eternal universe, is still a created universe. No explanation of evolutionary change, no matter how radically random or contingent it claims to be, challenges the metaphysical account of creation, that is, of the dependence of the existence of all things upon God as cause. When some thinkers deny creation on the basis of theories of evolution, or reject evolution in defense of creation, they misunderstand creation or evolution, or both.

Regardless of theories of quantum gravity, M-theory, Super-Symmetry, etc… etc… the same reasoning applies to Hawking’s never ending speculations. Whatever the latest theories and processes uncovered, whether we dwell in a universe or a multi-verse, whether CERN rewrites the Standard Model or not, these descriptions do not answer the metaphysical issues of the contingency of being.  Only a transcendent and uncaused cause, only “I AM,” answers the question; and he has actually spoken in Jesus Christ.

Humans are Theological Beings

Look, let’s be honest with one another.  Western culture is falling apart and attacks on God’s existence are not helping anyone to become less selfish.  The attacks are just leading more and more people to self-indulge in meaninglessness, drunkeness and relativism. Such false individualism hardly protects what the human race holds in its heart to be true, good, and beautiful.  The process of cultural disintegration was summarized best by John Paul the Great: as man loses the sense of God he also loses the sense of who he is.  For man, male and female, was made to the image and likeness of God.

We have always been theological beings, oriented to realizing ourselves only in the light of God and dependent on his revelation of his inner life in order to know ourselves.  We came from the Trinity, a mystery of Love and eternal self-giving.  The purpose of creation is to enable us to live in freedom so that we might choose to love as God revealed in Christ and so ourselves become sharers in eternal life.  Belief just in “God” is not enough for man to realize his identity.  The mystery of the one God as Trinity is necessary to preserve authentic human freedom.  God can only truly be love because from all eternity there was a mystery that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always surrendered themselves to one another in perfect communion… one in being… a mystery of Love.

The one God is Triune. If God were only one person then he would not have always lived as a gift for another from all eternity; and, therefore Love would not be his nature. Human love is called to grow — in our living for one another, not just for ourselves — so that we, made in God’s image, may enter the communion of God.  The Trinity is that foundation and model of love — for how to live as a gift to others — which Christ, God, revealed to man and empowers man to become.  For this reason we call Jesus the Way.

Jesus reveals man to himself.  The doctrines of Islam distort authentic love  with a vision of God as Master and not loving Father.  It cannot engender human freedom because it is modeled after the master-to-slave relationship.  Islam’s view of God distorts truth and freedom because it misunderstands the oneness of God and why God is love… not just Master.   Wake-up!  Nature abhors a vacuum.  The experience in the West is that Islam replaces former Christian cultures and eventually treats Christians as less than human when Islam becomes a majority. It cares less about Enlightenment ideas of freedom which steal from the past charity of a Christian vision. Islam preserved Aristotle and good philosophy until the Christian West could update it with Thomas Aquinas.  It would be a shame if Islam must rule and preserve England before England can again do good philosophy and be a light to the nations. Jesus is the true light which enlightens every man.

Pressing the Reset Button

We Yanks are as boorish as you Brits and just as secretly atheistic at heart as Hawking. The entire West has succumbed to this malaise.  It has even wreaked havoc in our religious institutions.  We seemingly can’t get enough money, sex and drugs (including alcohol) to distract ourselves from having to face ourselves and our own selfishness.  Do we really have to wait until we totally destroy ourselves in immorality before we realize how we have squandered the opportunity to build a civilization of love? We are unwilling to be faithful to our marriages or live for our own children and yet we think we can solve the world’s problems? We are not spiritually sick? Lord, have mercy.

If anyone has a reset button, it’s time to press it and give Christianity a second chance within liberal democracies.  We need to press that reset button before radical Islam finds more buttons to press.

It takes a big man to make such a statement about moving away from FOCA. Additionally, those who mailed in their red envelopes also deserve praise for getting him to pause and consider that the issues of abortion (and micro-abortion — directly attacking human embryos) are not just a matter for scientists (materialists), a matter where the ends justify the means. The issue is a matter of the values that define us: an issue where the culture’s values matter as much as cold techniques that use freedom as an excuse for anything.

Seemingly oblivious to it, President Obama — within the very same press conference — created the foundation from which perhaps he can reverse some of his earlier bad social decisions and reverse the hypocrisy within which he still walks. Discussing waterboarding of terrorists, President Obama said: “Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don’t think that’s just my opinion; that’s the opinion of many who’ve examined the topic. And that’s why I put an end to these practices. I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do… because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are…. You start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.” The same argument against abortion could be made by replacing the word ‘waterboarding’ with ‘abortion’ and replacing ‘torture’ with ‘murder’. Watch…

“[Abortion along with human embryonic stem cell research] violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is [murder]. I don’t think that’s just my opinion; that’s the opinion of many who’ve examined the topic. And that’s why I put an end to these practices. I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do…because we could have gotten this information [or healing] in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are…. You start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.” Yes America, there is reason for hope…. There’s no reason a U.S. President can’t say these words about abortion if he can say them about torture.

Be as suspicious as you may over President Obama’s motives for backtracking on FOCA. Was he just trying to keep poorly informed Catholics within the Democratic party with false hope? [Disclosure: I’m a registered Independent.] Has the leadership read the tea leaves and realized the party is about to be punished with mass defections? Being an optimist, I send President Obama my thanks. I prefer to believe the future is not written in stone, that humans are partners with God in determining the future. The future is determined by today’s actions, above all prayer and fasting. A second wave of red envelopes would also help to remind President Obama of the values of our country; that people are greatly upset that abortion continues to “corrode the character of our country”. The second round could remind him: “In case you mistook my silence last time.”

People of hate see nothing wrong with direct attacks upon innocent human life or direct attacks upon the importance of traditional marriage. “Many who’ve examined the topic” for thousands of years are in agreement… abortion is the taking of innocent human life and produces a culture of death that corrodes everything. Additionally, the reason so many pseudo-feminists (“pro-choicers”) think only of abortion, in Obama’s own words, “simply [as] an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations” is because the Marxists taught them to think that way. They know human relationships only in terms of power struggles (hate). Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator, believed the Marxist/atheistic revolution could only work and take hold with the abolition of the family. He taught that the revolution had to start with the abolition of the family (cf. Schooyans) because marriage was just another form of the assertion of power. Thus, women were “forced” into pregnancy and so needed greater freedom from marriage. The U.N. continues these false ideals under the guise of feminism (cf. Schooyans) as the rest of the world suffers homosexualist attacks on true diversity (male and female) from their State supreme courts.

The problem with most Marxists (really just materialists who deny God and authentic human values) is that they can’t believe in love. Everything is about power politics. They believe only in what their eyes can see and have little value for past wisdom. Everything is about change and revolution. They treat others as only means to an end or have been used by others so much they just won’t believe in love anymore. They’re a lot like secularists. Neither can live fully human lives because neither lives in love. They are simply diminished persons — living like animals, slaves to passions. To be human is to live in love, suffering for others, living for others. Humans are made to be God’s image and likeness and God is love. We can’t say we are fully human, fully in God’s image, if we withhold love from the unborn humans who await our love. Instead we become like animals when we choose to kill the innocent or when we seduce them into bestial behavior. As Marxists and Secularists fail to realize their own humanity, they fail to realize it in others, hence abortion thrives.

It is nice to see Obama indicate that he may be moving away from ideals that were ultimately inspired by Marxists. Let’s increase our prayers for him. And let’s keep those red envelopes going.

The cost of sex outside of marriage and men using women is now paid for by the children they conceived. We just have to turn a blind eye to the child’s sacrifice and bloodshed. Greedy banks and greedy borrowers can have all the homes and space they desire, even if the rest of responsible Americans are held hostage by their bad decisions and lack of honest foresight. Everyone else can be expected to sacrifice for such lack of judgment in trillions of dollars of taxpayer bailouts and losing their jobs due to the greed of others. Just as spectacular, all of those people so convinced they have a right to have a child – even if it means having doctors help them make the babies in plastic lab dishes – can also be excused for their recklessness in creating “spare” children. In fact such parents can be relieved of their children by selling-them-out into medical slavery where these living human embryos will be deprived of all rights and dignity and be killed for their stem cells. Such parents need a bail-out, too.

Obama has now shown that he really is inept in managing the economy and questions of human life all in one decision to make tax payer money available for human embryonic stem cell research. To allow the National Institutes of Health to dispense money for a science that has proven totally ineffective is worse than bailing-out banks that have proven themselves to be mismanaged and failures too. Now, when we need taxpayer money to be used more wisely than ever, why is he wasting money in a field that has only ruined the health of patients when human embryonic stem cells therapies were trialed? Amidst all the empty promises that this research would provide the greatest advances in medicine and save countless lives, it has produced zero breakthroughs and only injured the health of those involved. The disaster to morality and that the means can never justify the ends (directly attacking innocent life to save others) would still be enough to condemn the therapies even if they ever did prove effective.

In contrast, adult stem cells and umbilical cord stem cell therapies have only proven effective and have no moral stigma attached. Nevertheless, under Obama, proven science is sacrificed to a eugenics based philosophy…that humans are expendable and that not all humans are equal. At last the emperor has revealed he really is naked and that change is not truly a set of fancy new clothes. Change means Fascist scientific ideologies now receive taxpayer bailouts with additional false promises of success. Thus, if Obama is currently managing the economy in the hopes that the bail-outs will actually work, we can only expect that the body politic will emerge like the patients who underwent human embryonic stem cell trials…in worse condition than before the ‘therapy’ was applied.

With Obama, change now means we moved from capitalism to socialism in economics and from pragmatism to fascism in our approach to science and human dignity. Obama has proven himself just as effective in wasting money as in wasting humans through direct attacks upon human life. However, the greater guilt also rests upon our entire society that cherished the false ‘rights’ of individuals to do whatever they pleased; treating children like products to be made in consumer fertility shops called ‘treatment clinics’. These clinics are now holding cells for the new concentration camps that have been erected on the altar of radical secularism…advancing mankind through less bloody sacrifices…but human blood sacrifices non-the-less

Cardinal Virtues and Pragmatism

Our enemies see through talk of ‘freedom’ when it is a mask for licentiousness. We’ve gotten too accustomed to using one another for immediate gratifications instead of caring for one another. Without a certain level of the cardinal virtues as found in the Judeo-Christian tradition we will end-up victims of new found tyrannies; constantly trying to reinvent a freedom which only the Judeo-Christian vision carries within it. No other religion carries this light forward because no other religion carries a vision of freedom that respects an order established by a loving God who would be willing to suffer for us… for those He made to be His image and likeness… a likeness only found in selfless love.

Too often the “separation of church and state” is invoked to stop government from showing partiality to recognizable Christian values. Let’s call a spade a spade. Such a concept of “separation” does not really exist except in the minds of those who wish to weaken Christianity in general, recklessly undermining the development of the cardinal virtues in the citizens as they do so. The original intent of the First Amendment was to prevent any church from attempting to govern and to prevent such allegiances as those which led to the wars of religion suffered by 16^th and 17^th century Britain. (Such a threat no longer exists and the Vatican no longer has armies or a Holy Roman Emperor.) Newly independent America was not about to let Anglican England re-establish a foothold through the churches, nor let Rome with its alliances and loyal armies have influence in its affairs. The republic would be staunchly independent, resisting all foreign entanglements, allowing all types of Christians, Jews, Deists, and agnostics to live in peace according to the freedoms which the Constitution promised to protect as a rule of law.

It would protect freedom of religion as the best way to protect minorities and foster virtue amongst the citizenry, but only to the extent such practices preserved real freedoms and values understood by the Judeo-Christian society that voted to make the Constitution work; a society which generally understood that human dignity derived from the fact that human beings were made in the image and likeness of God (“their Creator”). The Constitution was never intended to pretend one religion was as valuable as another or deserving of the same protections, especially if it led to a lack of morals which endangered the State, for the State existed for the safety of its citizens, to protect domestic tranquility as it protected freedom of worship — and the Judeo-Christian family.

The Constitution was dependent upon the Declaration of Independence which clearly laid the foundation for law within a Judeo-Christian context of values. As the Christian Founding Father and second President of the United States, John Adams wrote: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” and “It is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue , and if this cannot be inspired into our people in greater measure than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty” (Federer, The Ten Commandments and Their Influence on American Law , pp.19-20, emphasis mine).

Ultra-secularists have played the fear card for too long now — cynically blaming religion for mankind’s wars and problems in total contradiction of the Founding Fathers. Borrowing the words of President Obama’s inaugural address, such radical and cynical secularists would well be reminded, “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.” The anti-Christian politics of the 19^th and 20^th Century have given way to better possibilities for reaffirming human dignity in God’s image and likeness and recalling the true intent of our Founding Fathers.

Christianity always best served human freedom and domestic tranquility because its standard is that humans are made in the image and likeness of God, a God Who is love because God is Trinity — a mystery of eternal self-giving. Man (male and female) — made in God’s image and likeness — was to be respected for his end: growing in God’s likeness; becoming love. This gave an understanding of what freedom was for and not just how freedom could be used. This understanding gave wisdom and not just legal technique. Humans, still hampered by original sin, were never perfect in realizing the justice which following Christ entailed, but our constant repentance and desire for communion with our Creator (revealed by Christ to be our loving Father), always renewed the original vision of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There is no other paradigm that can take us forward and preserve us in the virtues necessary to realize freedom and prosperity than the one that holds man aloft as the image and likeness of God and guided by the Ten Commandments. Any attempts at renewing the nation apart from understanding humans as the image and likeness of God will prove only a regression of freedom — not its realization — and a disintegration of the real ties that bind us. If these ties dissolve then only the worst of dictatorships will continue to keep us together and freedom will become an illusion as liberty vanishes under meaningless parchments.

Secularism or Christianity?

In his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae , Pope John Paul the Great leaves us with important observations about where the path of secularism leads:

Consequently, when the sense of God is lost, the sense of man is also threatened and poisoned, as the Second Vatican Council concisely states: "Without the Creator the creature would disappear … But when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible". Man is no longer able to see himself as "mysteriously different" from other earthly creatures; he regards himself merely as one more living being, as an organism which, at most, has reached a very high stage of perfection. Enclosed in the narrow horizon of his physical nature, he is somehow reduced to being "a thing", and no longer grasps the "transcendent" character of his "existence as man". …

Thus, in relation to life at birth or at death, man is no longer capable of posing the question of the truest meaning of his own existence, nor can he assimilate with genuine freedom these crucial moments of his own history. He is concerned only with "doing", and, using all kinds of technology, he busies himself with programming, controlling and dominating birth and death. Birth and death, instead of being primary experiences demanding to be "lived", become things to be merely "possessed" or "rejected".

Moreover, once all reference to God has been removed, it is not surprising that the meaning of everything else becomes profoundly distorted. Nature itself, from being "mater" (mother), is now reduced to being "matter", and is subjected to every kind of manipulation. This is the direction in which a certain technical and scientific way of thinking, prevalent in present-day culture, appears to be leading when it rejects the very idea that there is a truth of creation which must be acknowledged, or a plan of God for life which must be respected. Something similar happens when concern about the consequences of such a "freedom without law" leads some people to the opposite position of a "law without freedom", as for example in ideologies which consider it unlawful to interfere in any way with nature, practically "divinizing" it. Again, this is a misunderstanding of nature’s dependence on the plan of the Creator. Thus it is clear that the loss of contact with God’s wise design is the deepest root of modern man’s confusion, both when this loss leads to a freedom without rules and when it leaves man in "fear" of his freedom.

By living "as if God did not exist", man not only loses sight of the mystery of God, but also of the mystery of the world and the mystery of his own being. (#22)

Belief in God was always the real check and balance upon human power and false concepts of freedom. The underpinnings of law and society at the founding of the U.S. Constitution were underpinnings of a Creator who made us in His image and likeness — created free and intelligent with God as our end. As beings full of potential for freedom in God we were called to develop these potentials intelligently: observing justice by a properly formed conscience/intellect which considered future outcomes (prudence ); overcoming fears when fortitude is demanded to obtain greater real goods; and never thinking fellow humans made in God’s image and likeness could ever serve as mere means for our own selfish ends (finding self-restraint in temperance ). Our freedom was to be realized within a belief that love really makes the world go around. Love was supposed to be found in the first realm of education known as a human family as a man and woman lived out their mutual, life-long, and exclusive sexual commitment by caring for their offspring — but of course without the cardinal virtues, marriage is just as impossible as the State.

President Obama practically hit the nail on the head when he closed his inaugural address:

Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

I am not quite sure when tolerance made it beyond a civic virtue, or how curiosity did anything other than get cats killed, but “courage and fair play” certainly echo fortitude and justice.

President Obama seems to come so close to calling again for a renewal of the cardinal virtues. His frequent reference to God would make one assume he would expect the Judeo-Christian interpretation as to what guides and forms these virtues. How deep does Obama’s sense of God go? "When the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man. " To break with God is to break with each other. Enough talk of a new age when now is always the time to establish a Golden Age based on the dignity of every human made in the image and likeness of God. The true infrastructure which enables our prosperity and supports our bridges is the infrastructure of virtue as informed by the Ten Commandments.

The Virtue Deficit

The deeper crisis is not lack of liquidity in the economic system but the lack of virtue in individuals called to be stewards of the system. It was the lack of virtue that led to the poorly conceived laws (imprudence ), the injustices and deceits between borrowers and lenders, cowardliness in the face of a vicious media, and the greed and lusts (intemperance ) in men’s hearts that created the conditions for the economic crisis. There was a lack of vision of what is truly good for humans and how to help everyone achieve these real goods (prudence). Everyone thought first only of their own self-interest and rarely of the good for everyone concerned (justice). Men were afraid to take-on the political correctness that sways the weak-minded masses through media outlets and which has insinuated itself throughout every bureaucracy and institution; men lacked the will power for the long hard fight (fortitude). We are more concerned for immediate self-satisfaction instead of lasting satisfaction through self-denial and patient and wise stewardship (temperance). How can we confront such a multi-tentacled beast and cast out the web of deceit that now darkens America’s great light?

Where are the statesmen genuinely concerned with ensuring the preservation of the Union? Can we not see why people are so easily forecasting our dissolution? Do our public leaders no longer understand the role of virtue in making the body politic strong and healthy? The underpinning of the economic problem is a moral decay; throwing money at it will only make it worse. The Founding Fathers frequently wrote of the need for virtue among the citizenry in order to make the Constitution work and also the political economy it was designed to protect. If today’s leaders do not understand this, we should be very concerned about the viciousness that has been allowed to develop within the citizenry as it will be difficult to reverse such a self-inflicted wound.

Not to recognize and support something as simple as the common basis for morality, which was present at our nation’s founding, is little better than injuring a tree’s roots; and trees with damaged roots usually fall. It does little good to have a Constitution if the citizens don’t have the necessary critical mass of the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude) needed in order for the Constitution to work as intended. Politicians must know their value and how to foster their proper formation to meet the ends of our Constitution. The Constitution was not born in a vacuum and virtue is not formed instantaneously. The Constitution was birthed within a citizenry that had the prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude needed to make it work. These virtues were even more pronounced in the earliest citizens who were further trained in them as they persevered in the War for Independence and suffered tremendous hardships to obtain the vision within their Declaration of Independence.

The Point of Virtue

The classical virtues, better known as the moral or cardinal virtues, gave capacities to the citizenry to make the union work, and that union was much like a marriage. As in any marriage it will fail if one does not have the needed moral virtues and capacities to sustain it. If just one of the spouses lacks the virtues it takes to make a marriage work, the marriage may also fail. Even worse: if the wider-community does not uphold fidelity, the marriage finds little external support. Thus, if a spouse is unable to practice temperance and gives-in too easily to lust, then infidelity will wreck the marriage. Lack of justice and temperance within a nation will just as easily wreck commerce and destroy trust. Virtues do not come easy…they are developed by constant practice and acquired through sufferings until they become second nature. One must be trained from an early age in virtues or find them all the more difficult to achieve amidst shackling vices.

Only after much struggle and practice does one play the piano with ease. The same is true about being human, only after much struggle and practice does one acquire what it means to lead a life lived freely and lived well. Of course someone is free to bang on piano keys and never struggle to learn how to make music that fills the souls of others with beauty. Just as truly one is free to be human and bang around in society much like a wild ass (and this seems today’s norm). However, when one is trained in the cardinal virtues from an early age until they become one’s own, then one becomes greater than he was…as human potential becomes actual and a life of grace is realized. When a child is trained in discerning good from evil, he learns to make better choices for the future (prudence ). As one is trained in justice , he learns to care for his neighbor’s good and develop stable society. As one is trained in temperance he learns self-restraint in order to have the needed virtues to live for others and not just himself; he can give of himself because he is in possession of himself instead of possessed by his passions. As one is trained in fortitude he learns to face threats to himself and his community and he recognizes that self-preservation is not always the greatest good. In this development of a human life, he is made capable of obtaining the true goods of life and greater freedom for living is discovered. The development is always a struggle, entailing some suffering — as all training does — but the pay-off is beyond measure: a human that makes life beautiful for all those around him.

The citizenry of America were shaped in the cardinal virtues — by Christian families and by the hardships of the War for Independence — according to a standard that preceded the Constitution. The prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude which the citizenry understood and practiced — upon which the Constitution depended — didn’t come from just any tradition. These virtues were guided, formed and practiced in accord with the Ten Commandments…as understood within the traditional Judeo-Christian context. No lawyer of that time (Christian, Jewish, Deist or Agnostic) would have denied the Ten Commandments as the underpinning for law within the United States and the governing of relationships; nor would they have thought to undermine them. As then, so should we now be suspicious of the prudence of anyone who would undermine the Ten Commandments as the guide for virtue formation in modern Western civil life.

But how pragmatic is it to insist that the Ten Commandments are the moral underpinnings of our law today, when we live — as we are reminded endlessly — in such a diverse society? That is the question we will take up in Part Two.

In the same Pittsburgh Post-Gazette internet article of October 13, 2008 (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08287/919582-470.stm?cmpid=elections.xml), Obama highlighted: “There was a time when African-Americans weren’t allowed to serve in combat…And yet, when they did, not only did they perform brilliantly, but what also happened is they helped to change America, and they helped to underscore that we’re equal.”

Comparing sex to race is like comparing apples to oranges. Whether black men perform as brilliantly as white men on the front line is not the same issue as whether men are abdicating their roles by advocating for women to fight on the front line. Is our culture diminished by asking women to be front line killers? Women killing as well as men is not a promotion of real values and equality, nor does it underscore equality. It is as bad as advocating that abortion is good for women. Misled by seemingly Marxist egalitarian principles, Obama’s advocacy for women in combat roles demonstrates it is an issue just as far above his pay-grade as whether human life starts at conception. He should get straight the right-to-life, the foundational issue, before pretending to understand subsequent issues like women in combat.

Obama Should Learn from Ratzinger

In his God and the World interview Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) comments: “Personally it still horrifies me when people want women to be soldiers just like men, when they, who have always been the keepers of the peace and in whom we have always seen a counter-impulse working against the male impulse to stand up and fight, now likewise run around with submachine guns, showing that they can be just as warlike as the men.  Or that women now have the ‘right’ to work as garbage collectors or miners, to do all those things that, out of respect for their status, for their different nature, their own dignity, we ought not to inflict on them and that are now imposed on them in the name of equality.  That, in my opinion, is a Manichaean ideology that is opposed to the body” (p.82).

In other words, bodily difference of male and female are not insignificant factors.  The difference represents authentic diversity which should be respected as providing real complimentarity for fruitful relationships and enriched societies.  Beyond any doubt there have been abuses where the gifts of women were overlooked or suppressed in society, but denial that “persons are their bodies,” Ratzinger comments, is “a kind of egalitarianism that does not exalt women but diminishes their status.  By being treated as male, [women] are dragged down to being undistinguished and ordinary” (p.83).

Obama has said he knows how to treat a woman, as he jokes about ice cream dates with his future wife and comes across as a very likeable guy.  Deep down he seemingly knows women are special and to be treasured.  Why then the rush to send them in to slaughter and active combat?  Why the militant-feminist national security spokeswoman?  Why not advocate for men to respect women and to prefer that men should be willing to sacrifice in place of women?  Why not ask men to be men instead of asking women to be men?  Additionally, if he is going to advocate for women, why not advocate for a more just society within America and speak out against depersonalizing women… just using them for sex and putting them in that dangerous circumstance of pregnancy outside of wedlock, where children are fortunate if they are not painfully shredded in abortion by women who have been depersonalized, too?

Time to Resist the Culture of Use and Death

Instead of speaking in favor of sending women into active combat, why not speak out against a culture of pornography and fornication that puts women in compromising circumstances?  Besides being unfashionable, is it now un-American to speak out against fornication.  Does the American man equate American culture with the freedom to use women for sex?  Is this why ‘egalitarian’ men do not mind putting women in situations like combat since they already don’t mind seeing them in situations like fornication?  If we are going to compromise their gift of fertility, why not their lives?

Even were women as capable as men at wielding arms, we are lesser men for asking them to do it for us; just as we are lesser men when we willingly abandon them to raise our children without us.  Because women are not ordinary, but represent authentic diversity in the unity of humanity, they stand as witnesses to a culture of life.  What a diminishment to their dignity that they should have ever become submachine-gun-wielding poster-pin-ups for socialist guerilla movements!  What a diminishment that women should have been so used by men for sex that they march waving coat-hangers!

Unless marriage and family are respected as instituted by God for the promotion of the human race and real values, society will continue to degenerate in moral blindness and strange advocacies.  Without the light of Christ in politics, living will become more and more about selfish fulfillment and individualism instead of discovering who we are by making a real gift of ourselves for others in the image and likeness of Christ.  Distinction between male and female will be lost more and more as the lust for self-fulfillment will enslave even the light of reason.  Society will grow cold-hearted and incapable of real love.  And it will give women submachine guns to shoulder instead of shouldering its own responsiblity to give them the safety of commitment, homes, and children.

Genesis Paints a Poor Picture of Polygamists

In fact, it is not hard to notice that everyman from the time of Adam until the time of Lamech (of the line of Cain) takes only one wife.  The Book of Genesis is very clear about Lamech’s deviation[2] as Lamech of the line of Cain is the first one of whom it is stated, “Lamech took two wives” (Gen 4:19), and then the Scriptures present Lamech as being a proud murderer as well (Gen 4:23-24).  More to the point, the Genesis narrative — using Lamech as its starting point — implicitly blames the Flood on the acceptance of Lamech’s practice of polygamy by God’s covenant family in Seth (line of the “sons of God”).  In fact, the very next time someone is presented as taking more than one wife (“sons of God” taking as many wives as they chose), the Lord decides to cleanse the world (Gen 6:3,7-8) and is grieved by man’s wickedness (Gen 6:5-6).

Presented for the first time, Lamech is not just a murderer, but a deviant in the sexual sphere who later commits murder more heinous than his forefather Cain.  He is the symbol of self-centered love.  He is the first occurrence of the Old Testament pattern: “They have committed adultery and blood is on their hands” (Ezek 23:37).[3]  Relevant to the discussion of implicit biblical condemnation of polygamy (Lamech’s two wives) is the connection between the descendants of Lamech of the line of Cain (sons of men) and the descendants of Lamech of the line of Seth (sons of God).[4]  For, too often, recent biblical scholars have missed that these two family lines have been set in opposition — and with allegorical significance — and so such scholars misinterpret the texts concerning the correct identity of the “sons of God”[5] (Gen 6:2,4), especially when they cling exclusively to form or historical critical analysis and view the “sons of God” as possibly divine beings taken from the myths of other ancient cultures.[6]

Before the Flood which ultimately kills it off, the line of Cain ends in the immediate children of Lamech (the polygamist).  It is these children who are the only ones listed as the founders or “ancestors” (Gen 4:20-22) of certain ways of life.  “Mysteriously,” the listing of Cain’s line — aside from naming the wives of Lamech — is all men, but it ends on a woman, “Naamah.”  Why her brothers are listed is clear…to let us know of what they are the exemplars.  So, why is “Naamah” listed without us being told that of which she is the exemplar?  Or is it implicit?

Deficiencies in the Jerome Biblical Commentary

The Jerome Biblical Commentary explains how the brothers’ names are related to what they founded.[7]  However, and despite noting two paragraphs later “a definite connection exists between J’s Cain list and P’s Seth list,”[8] concerning “Naamah” it records: “The significance of Naamah (na’amah, ‘lovely,’ ‘gracious’) is unexplained.”[9]  Herein shows a deficiency with adherence to the JEDP theories and exclusive reliance upon historical critical methods.  Such adherence seems to have disabled commentators from recognizing that the name “Naamah” (who is the daughter of the polygamist Lamech) is the allegorical connection between “daughters of man” and the “sons of God” and God deciding on the Flood.  In fact, her name can be translated “beautiful,” since persons who are lovely and gracious are described as beautiful.

The passage immediately before the passage when God decides on the Flood states: “the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them [polygamy] as they chose” (Gen 6:2)[10].  Seeing how “beautiful the daughters of man were” is a direct reference to the “Naamahs” of Cain’s line all over the earth; the very name means “lovely” and “gracious” and men seeing these qualities saw “beauty” that they sensually desired.  Laying aside reason — and so abandoning God whose image and likeness made them capable of reason — they took “for their wives as many of them [the 'Naamahs'] as they chose.”

However, there remained children of an opposing Lamech, children who kept to the proper worship of God and love of neighbor and who were the descendants of Seth, as opposed to Cain.  These are the men who “invoke the LORD by name” (Gen 4:26) and in this familiarity are considered the “sons of God.”  Some in this line of Seth “walked” so closely with God that God took them to Heaven before natural death (Gen 5:24) or waited until after their death before punishing the world (Gen 5:27).[11]  Should they abandon God, then no other line of men would be left that pleased God or “knew” the LORD or could serve as the cultural container that would be needed for the Messiah.

Sadly, God is betrayed eventually by most of the line of Seth.  These “sons of God” chose to follow the “flesh” instead of the “spirit” and become polygamists (cf. Gen 6:2).  However, the son of Lamech (line of Seth), Noah, finds favor with God (Gen 6:8).  The good Lamech is marked by the number 777 (Gen 6:31) to show he belongs to the covenant of God and is intimate family with the Almighty.  Thus, Lamech’s child Noah will be spared from the Flood along with only the line of his descendants.

One might rightly ask, “What was it that caused Noah to find favor with God?”  Surely, Lamech being Noah’s father has much to do with it as the Lord blesses the generations of those that fear Him (Deut 5:10).  However, and additionally, there is something that might go easily missed in the whole account.  Notice that the other “sons of God” are taking as many wives as they want, but the son of the man marked with the sign of the covenant “777″ has only one wife and his sons only have one wife each (1 Pet 3:20).[12]  This line of Lamech continues, while the line of Lamech (“took two wives” (Gen 4:19)) is ended with the flood.

Additional Comment on “Sons of God”

In his critique of other misleading scholarship, Miguel Miguens defends against false postulations that the morality found in the Old Testament was culturally conditioned.  After demonstrating time and again that the “Bible itself claims that in sexual matters it marks a sharp reaction to the cultural milieu of the surrounding peoples,”[13] Miguens goes on to demonstrate a kind or running stream of morality behind various biblical stories which are found in specific condemnations in Leviticus or Exodus.  He sees in the Exodus 34:16 passage: “you shall not take Canaanite wives for your sons,” a law which is behind the blame expressed in the case…of the punishing Flood.”[14]  He seemingly views the new “sons of God” as Israel rescued from Egypt and the “daughters of man” as the pagan and idolatrous Canaanite women who will cause the “sons of God” to apostasize.  In other words, the Flood, as presented in Miguens article was not specifically about polygamy, but God’s family apostasizing by mixing with women who kept foreign gods; whether they took one wife from the Canaanites or many.  Nevertheless, his point deserves explicit development.

The very essence of “taking Canaanite wives” in its first appearance after the Flood by God’s covenant line (Esau) automatically entails polygamy (Gen 26:34) and violation of God’s family line; therefore, the rightful “son of God” will lose the line of blessing (Gen 26:35; Gen 27:34-37) and it will transfer to Jacob who is only later tricked into polygamy.  The theme of sexual sin leading to apostasy is repeatedly echoed as in Ezekiel’s prophecy, “For they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands” (Ezek 23:37).  Here Ezekiel is referring to spiritual adultery with God and betrayal of the covenant, but this spiritual adultery takes place due to Canaanite wives.  Canaanite wives necessarily entail polygamy and polygamy in practice is automatically a violation of authentic marital fidelity.  Polygamy denies the equality of the sexes founded upon the image and likeness of God which males and females both bear equally.  Once a man learns acceptance of infidelity within his sexual practice, it is not much of a step to take infidelity into his religious practice of worship and drift from his original fidelity to God.  This reinforces the point that the Flood is inseparable from polygamy and triggered when God’s human family line adopted the false religion of those who did not “invoke the LORD by name” (Gen 5:26 right worship and imaging of God) and who do not keep to an upright and properly formed conscience (cf. Rom 1:24-32).

It is further demonstrated that the root cause of the Flood entailed polygamy by an even closer analysis of the sixth chapter of Genesis and Naamah’s mother and brother.  The “beautiful…daughters of Man”[15] (Gen 6:2,4), typified and exemplified in “Naamah” (Gen 4:22), have children from unions with the “sons of God” and the children were “heroes of old, the men of renown” (Gen 6:4).  The “men of renown” are people who make their name great instead of God’s…the men who are feared instead of healthy fear of God.  They were obviously not “heroes” in God’s sight, or God would have spared them the Flood.  Thus, they must have been men who made a name for themselves by killing others, like their maternal grandfather Lamech who bragged that his name would be feared: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gen 4:24).  It is also evidenced that the “men of renown” were murderers by examining God’s covenant that followed the Flood and his concern that their practice be stopped (cf. Gen 9:6).  Curiously, with what did the “men of renown” kill so many men and cause such fear?

The answer is found right before “Naamah” is listed.  The name listed before her as her brother, is: “Tubalcain, the ancestor of all who forge instruments of bronze and iron” (Gen 4:22); bronze and iron, the very dress and weapons of warriors.[16]  Brother and sister, Tubalcain and Naamah, representatives of the weapons of war and the women to fight over; they were both born of the second wife of Lamech, “Zillah” (Gen 4:20,22).  In an allegory, one could not more clearly state that the offspring of Lamech’s polygamy was the acceptance and continuation of murder and adultery.  Lamech is clearly shown to have two wives, before it is revealed that he became a hardened murderer.  As Tubalcain and Naamah are the continuation of Lamech’s unrepentant line within the polygamist union of Zillah, and as the line of men (Cain) is ended with them, it is clear the Flood is sent to end what the line of Lamech began and to punish the “sons of God” who began to accept multiple wives and murder as evidenced in their children becoming “men of renown”…men who seek to be worshipped in place of God.

Side-note on the Patriarchs and Kings

Finally, in light of the polygamy of the patriarchs and kings David and Solomon, is it only incidental that the Bible ties polygamy to Lamech’s murderous ways?  Why does God only specifically speak of murder by name after the Flood (Gen 9:6) and not polygamy?  Part of the apparent silence is due to respect for the patriarchs and kings, lest their children writing these stories seem to overtly attack and so dishonor their parents and origins.  Additionally, Christ had not yet come to override Moses’ tolerations (cf. Mt 19:8) of neglect of the intended order…an order that Christ demanded be re-established.  However, Moses and the other inspired authors still implicitly condemn the polygamy of their forefathers by showing its ill effects.

Polygamy amongst the patriarchs, though tolerated, is placed in a condemning light.  It causes nothing but problems for Abraham and Sarah when he takes Hagar due to Sarah’s prompting and Hagar is never really considered equal to a wife.  Polygamy occurs with Jacob because he was tricked[17] (so, seemingly forgivable), yet it leads to problems of favoritism and Joseph’s half-brothers selling Joseph into slavery.  Of note is the fact that Isaac — who most perfectly prefigures Christ as the child of promise — never has more than one wife.[18]

Most likely reflecting on chapters four and six of Genesis and the apostasies of the kings of Judah, the future Pope, Cardinal Wojtyla commented:

The books of the Old Testament provide sufficient evidence that…(polygamy) is in practice conducive to the treatment of women by men as [sex] objects…and so at once degrades women and lowers the level of morality amongst men.  We need only remember the story of King Solomon.[19]

This pattern of the lowering of the “level or morality amongst men” was exactly the pattern with Lamech of Cain and later the “sons of God.”  It is the disappointing pattern in King David’s fall from holiness, beginning with the adulterous affair with Bathsheeba, continuing in polygamy, and finally culminating in bloodshed — not only of Uriah, but in the fratricidal warfare of David’s sons.

There is a reason that adultery, whether it is found in polygamy or divorce and ‘remarriage’ (serial polygamy), leads to the lowering of “the level of morality amongst men.”  It is discovered within the failure to fulfill the vocation to love and in the violation of the personalistic norm, the violation of which hardens the heart into treating people like objects instead of persons.  Polygamy is a serious violation of fidelity, wounds the soul of the one who practices it, and insults God as it denies the image and likeness of God which makes women equal to men.  Polygamy inspires giving false honor to God when practiced by those claiming to ‘know’ him.

[4] Maly, “Genesis,” p. 14.

[5] Sutcliffe, E.F. “Genesis.”  in Bernard Orchard et al. A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953, 177-205, p.189 (j)

[6] Clifford, Richard and Roland Murphy, “Genesis”  R.E. Brown et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. 2^nd ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Inc, 1990, 8-43, at 14.

[7] Maly, “Genesis,” p.14.

[8] Maly, “Genesis,” p.14.

[9] Maly, “Genesis,” p.14.

[10] New American Bible, St. Joseph ed. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1986.

[11] Methusaleh’s death coincides with the Flood as measured by the numerology.

[12] I am indebted to Mark Key for this insight.

[13] Miguens, “Biblical Thoughts,” p.103.

[14] Ibid., pp.106-7.

[15] The underlying assumption is that Genesis shifts the opposition of the worldly line of Cain and the heavenly line of Seth with the opposition of the “daughters of man” (Cain) and the “sons of God” (Seth).

[16] See: Sutcliffe, “Genesis,” pp.188-89.  Here-in the author claims Lamech’s brag in Gen 4:23-4 is actually a claim to more sophisticated “forged” weapons and thus the family secret passed to his son.

[17] The additional concubinage of his wives’ servants is in the same category of Sarah’s prompting of Abraham.  Notice how the “lowering of the level of morality” gets worse amongst his sons and grandsons; i.e. slaughter over Dinah, Reuben with Billah, Judah seeking prostitution, Onan and his brothers, etc….

[18] The real meaning of Exodus 34:16 as mentioned by Miguens might be found in Gen 26:35 where Rebecca is deciding to shift the covenant from Esau who took two wives.  Notice how Canaanites and polygamy are tied together in Gen 26:34.

[19] Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993, p.212

The intention of this article is to demonstrate that promulgation of the title and dogma "CoRedemptrix" is not a luxury but much rather a necessity.  John Paul the Great did much to heal misunderstandings in Mariology since Vatican II, but Joseph Ratzinger's own words still ring true from the time he made this statement concerning Lumen Gentium: "[T]he immediate outcome of the victory of ecclesiocentric Mariology was the collapse of Mariology altogether" (Mary: The Church at the Source, p.24).  This "collapse" was an outcome that not even Paul VI's "introduction of the title 'Mother of the Church'" could prevent (p.24).  What allowed false interpretations that led to the collapse?  What is the needed healing for the Church and the world?  The five Cardinals are on the right track.  The title "Co-Redemptrix" is not a luxury, it is a necessity.  It will help make sense of the titles "Mediatrix" and "Advocate" which Lumen Gentium did bestow on Mary.  More importantly, it will restore the Mariology our religious orders and our "domestic churches" (family homes) need to flourish.

Lourdes 150 Years Later

"I am the Immaculate Conception" was the response to Saint Bernadette's question, "What is your name?"  It is a response the Church has meditated upon for the past 150 years since the Virgin's apparitions in Lourdes in February 1858.  Of course, we know this is the same person who was the Mother of Jesus and that, even before this interesting "new name" (cf. Rev 2:17) declared at the Lourdes apparition site, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had already been proclaimed.  Almost 2000 years earlier, the Angel Gabriel himself had already greeted Mary by just as fascinating a "new" name: "Full of Grace" (Lk 1:28).  Names from God reveal callings or missions.  Those who receive grace are to be sources of grace for others as Saint Basil the Great tells us in his treatise on the Holy Spirit.

Some of Pope Benedict's earlier writings on Mary (from 1979-1980) are contained in a more recent book called Mary: The Church at the Source.  He follows an insightful observation to penetrate the mystery of Mary's mysterious calling.  He alludes to the mystery of personhood when discussing that John the Evangelist never uses Mary's name in his gospel, but only calls her the "Mother of Jesus".  Ratzinger continues: "it is as if she had handed over her personal dimension, in order to be solely at [Jesus'] disposal, and precisely thereby had become a person" (p.16).

The most important moment that Mary is identified as the Mother of Jesus is when John the evangelist is preparing us to understand that Mary is now the New Eve.  This moment is at the foot of the Cross when Jesus looks down and says to her, "Woman, behold your son" (Jn 19:20).  What then is the mystery of human personhood which we are called to contemplate concerning the one revealed as: "Full of Grace", "Immaculate Conception", "Mother of Jesus", and "Woman"?  Can we as beloved disciples understand it better if we will stand with her, "At the Cross Her Station Keeping"?  How is Mary's calling as "Immaculate Conception" further revealed at the Cross?

Orientale Lumen and Human Personhood

In his Apostolic Letter, Orientale Lumen, we catch John Paul the Great's deep appreciation for the East's theology of the person: "The East helps us to express the Christian meaning of the human person with a wealth of elements.  It is centered on the Incarnation, from which creation itself draws light.  In Christ, true God and true man, the fullness of the human vocation is revealed.  In order for man to become God, the Word took on humanity" (#15.2).  It is the same theology which guides his theology of the body, inspired by the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross whose writings are immersed in the tradition of the Greek fathers.

In Orientale lumen, John Paul the Great basically reiterated the great Doctor of the East and West, Saint Athanasius: "God became Man, that man might become God" (CCC #460).  It is the very source of Saint Louis De Montfort's True Devotion proclamation that "what God is by nature, the Virgin is by grace".  Pope John Paul the Great wants the West to recover this aspect of the catechetical tradition which the East preserved more consistently: "we believe that the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches is an integral part of the heritage of Christ's Church, the first need for Catholics is to be familiar with that tradition, so as to be nourished by it" (cf. OL #1.4).

In several previous articles on Catholic Exchange I have discussed deification through Christ's grace…the patrisitic understanding of how man "becomes God" without loss to man's personal identity (See: The Spirit and the Assumption: Deification and Vatican II; “Is Man to Become God?”; Deification and the New Evangelization).  These have not always emphasized that where this takes place is in man's self-emptying (cf. Phil 2:7 "kenosis")…where Christ makes it possible for human love to become divine.  The basis of John Paul the Great's theology of the body is the development of Vatican II's Christology when it proclaims that "Jesus fully reveals man to himself" (Gaudium et Spes #22) and so "man can fully discover his own self only in a sincere giving of himself" (Gaudium et Spes #24).  Jesus had already explained the process of deification: "Whoever loses himself (becomes a gift) for my sake will be found [become a true person]" (cf. Mt 10:39 & Lk 9:24); and: "Man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his beloved" (Jn 15:13).  If we are to "become God"…Who is the model of true Personhood, then we must become Love by God's power working within us "to desire and to work" (Phil 2:13).  The Fathers tells us that we are made in the image of God to become the likeness of God…real persons.

Vatican II: Her Station Keeping?

Ratzinger's comment becomes more revealing.  It is Mary who loses herself for Jesus' sake: "it is as if she had handed over her personal dimension, in order to be solely at [Jesus'] disposal, and precisely thereby had become a person" (Mary: The Church at the Source, p.16).  In her self-emptying at the foot of the Cross, something greater is occurring in her than in any other human redeemed by Christ.  As the Immaculate Conception she is already the Church (the Spouse) in person and an actual part of Jesus' Redemption by her special share in the Spirit prior to all others.  Jesus' Spirit is at work in her at the Cross to suffer in faith with the Redeemer.  The fuller meaning of the Immaculate Conception is being revealed.  The "mournful mother weeping" is the Woman, "wailing aloud in pain as she labored to give birth" (Rev 12:2).  Jesus then proclaims: "Woman, behold your son!" (Jn 19:26).  At the Cross, her calling as the Immaculate Conception was further revealed…she was now the new Eve.  Jesus could now say to all disciples: "Behold your Mother!" (Jn 19:27).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: "Mary became the Woman, the new Eve" (CCC #726).  Though she was the Immaculate Conception from the beginning, the fuller meaning of this grace was not revealed in her without her always making a gift of herself in the service of her Son.  Whenever the Spirit applies Christ's redemption to us, we now always find Mary "again in travail until Christ be formed in you" (cf. Gal 4:19).  We never experience the Spirit apart from Mary, the Woman.  She is truly our Mother here and now whenever we are touched by grace and participate in Jesus.  She is redeemed by Christ's coming into this world for us men and our salvation, but the Church has been clear she is redeemed in a unique manner: "Mary belongs more to Christ than to Adam" (Ratzinger, God and the World, p. 304).  Her work as the Immaculate Conception remains a work of Christ in her.

When Vatican II placed the Virgin within the framework of the Church by including chapters on Mary within the document Lumen Gentium, a shift in emphasis was made to correct false exaggerations (even tendencies) that seemed to make Mary an alternate to Christ.  Lumen Gentium's structure was a reaffirmation that she too is redeemed by Christ and was dependent upon the Word's Incarnation for the grace in which she shared.  Sadly, this shift of emphasis was misinterpreted by many.  Some people began to think that talk of Mary as "model" and "exemplar" meant that her motherhood was an analogy only.  She became, for many, more of a model than a mother.

Restoring Her Station

Ratzinger wrote that the immediate effect of this shift, known as the victory of ecclesiocentric Mariology, "was the collapse of Mariology altogether" (Mary: The Church at the Source, p.24).  Paul VI tried to prevent such misunderstandings by officially bestowing the title "Mother of the Church" upon Mary with the promulgation of Lumen Gentium.  This title was supposed to "express the fact that Mariology goes beyond the framework of ecclesiology and at the same time is correlative to it" (cf. Ratzinger, p.29).  In other words, it was supposed to affirm her real motherhood without being a source for false exaggerations that make her parallel to Christ.

What is ironic is that the Church recognized the need to bestow a title on Mary after this shift at Vatican II in order to prevent a breakdown in Mariology.  Did Paul VI's particular title prevent the breakdown?  The obvious answer according to Ratzinger is "No."  More ironically, and having spoken against the title "Co-Redemptrix" while Prefect for the Congregation of Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Benedict is now being asked by several Cardinals to reconsider the views he held on the title's fittingness before becoming Pope.  In the case of the Arian crisis, it took the term "homoousios" to restore real orthodoxy to Christology.  Can the title "Co-Redemptrix" do the same for Mariology and give greater glory to Christ?

Lumen Gentium used the actual titles of "Advocate" and "Mediatrix" for Mary (see: LG #62).  Without "Co-Redemptrix" these titles are open to misinterpretation and we are left with the idea that Mary is more a model for us as to how we are each an advocate or a mediatrix.  The Greek word perichoresis describes how some terms help to explain one another and give a better picture of the whole through their interplay.  For a true perichoresis to occur with "Advocate" and "Mediatrix", the title "Co-Redemptrix" is necessary for orthodoxy.  "Co-Redemptrix" affirms that Mary is in Christ in the Spirit during the Redemption (cf. Paul VI, Credo of the People of God #14-15).  It is a reaffirmation of her calling as the Immaculate Conception.  "Mediatrix" can then explain why Mary is present in our receiving the Redemption because of her priority as "Co-Redemptrix"; thus grace is not received apart from her.  Grace (the indwelling of the Spirit) is still directly from Jesus as communicated by the Spirit, but inseparable from Mary's role in the Spirit.  "Advocate" sheds more light on Mary's continued office of obtaining the Spirit for us and Mary's constant prayers that Jesus send the Spirit for us.

The five Cardinals who recently relaunched the effort to restore Marian orthodoxy amongst Roman Catholics through the official promulgation of the title "CoRedemptrix" have joined with John the Evangelist to comfort Mary "at her station keeping".  They have wrapped their arms around religious orders in order to lend them support.  They have stood with every "domestic church" to reinvigorate each with renewed Marian devotion.  The greatest hope is that, united with Mary, each of us will better learn to give himself and herself to God at the foot of the Cross — at every Liturgy of the Eucharist — and become a real person through the grace of sanctification (which is our deification).

"Hail, O perfect purity, immaculate bridal-chamber of the Word, cause of the deification of us all, sweet sounding echo of the voice of the prophets!  Hail, O glory of the apostles!…  O most holy Mother of God, save us!" ("Acathist Hymn", Sixth Ode, Byzantine Daily Prayer, p.964).

The future Pope told Peter Seewald: "God will take action to counter an ultimate crime, an ultimate act of self-destruction, on the part of man.  He will take action against the attempt to demean mankind by the production of slave beings.  There are indeed final boundaries we cannot cross without turning into the agents of the destruction of creation itself, without going far beyond the original sin and the first Fall and all its negative consequences" (pp. 134-5).  In the interview, he basically pointed to human embryonic research and human cloning reaching a point that would force God to 'take action'.

Jews and Christians might remember that God takes the ritual murder of innocent human life seriously; whether thrown off a cliff (Amorite/Canaanite ritual), burned at a pillar (Amorite/Canaanite ritual), or dissected under a microscope (Post-Modern ritual). Almost four thousand years ago God told Abraham that He removes such peoples once such abomination "reached its full measure" (cf. Gen 15:16 & 1 Kg 21:26).  Even chosen nations can quickly become abominations when they adopt ritual child-sacrifice.

According to the Times Online, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Willams recently "poured scorn on the 'chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God's purpose for humanity'".  He apparently forgot who saved England in World War II and where the chosen nation "myth" began.  However, he may be right that the status is fast becoming a myth, that the salt is losing its flavor, as America hemorrhages from its moral superiority artery with its lack of abhorrence to human embryonic research.

With the anniversary of Pearl Harbor and America's entrance into WWII on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we should take time for national reflection on God's providence, the connection between human embryonic stem cell research and the events of September 11, 2001.  Have we passed a chance for re-conversion to Christ?  Now that American scientists have crossed the barriers that had prevented cloning of primates, we should consider whether we really want to see Cardinal Ratzinger's prophetic statement in God and the World fully realized.

Providence and WWII

We simply do not understand divine providence while it is happening.  It requires faith-filled reflection.  Let those who wish to mock the eyes of faith mock it.  It was Vatican II that reminded us of the need for eyes of faith to discern "genuine signs of the presence or purpose of God" (GS #11.1).  During WWII, America was a nation chosen to deliver humanity from the grip of murderous fascism and its eugenicist underpinnings.  America was the salt of the earth.  It was December 8, 1941 when America declared war on Japan for Japan's December 7 bombing of Pearl Harbor.  What many Americans forget is that December 8 is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, not just our national entrance into WWII.  That Feast Day is of national significance to the USA because, according to the Catholic Church — since the 19^th Century –, the Virgin Mary is the Patroness of the United States under the title of the 'Immaculate Conception'.  It is why the Basilica in our nation's capital is called the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.  Sitting between Virginia and Maryland is our nation's capital and the Basilica that honors our national patroness.  America may not be Catholic, but God certainly wills that all men freely choose entrance into the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

The connection between our WWII providential mission and the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception could easily be ignored if not for the fact that Japan surrendered to the United States on public radio on August 15, 1945.  Yes, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the United States heard the public surrender of Japan via radio.  The Feast of the Assumption, which theologically further reveals the Immaculate Conception, was the public surrender that ended WWII and led to the final treaty.  The Virgin expressly revealed her concern of the coming World War at Fatima and now, through Catholic feast days, had revealed she was with America in halting WWII.  America was a chosen nation.  There is not the space here to discuss why the good are allowed to suffer evil; we have only the crucifixion of Christ as God's answer to these questions.  God loves us and chose to suffer with us.  God does not take away human freedom in order to prevent evil and he knows human cruelty and personal suffering first-hand due to such freedom.

What is at point here is that dates can have significance for the recognition of divine providence.  At Fatima, the Virgin Mary appeared on May 13, 1917 and warned of how to prevent WWII through a special consecration to her Immaculate Heart.  Sadly, the requested consecration was delayed until after the Pope was shot on May 13, 1981 and dates again revealed Fatima's importance to the world.  Despite the delay of the consecration, the Virgin still chose a nation united to her as the Immaculate Conception to reveal her power in heaven and still intervened to deliver humanity from WWII.  God never stopped trying to save us from the horrors engendered by misuse of our freedoms.  God was not to blame for the horrors of WWII; evil men were.

WWIII and America

President Bush continues to point at Iran and ask if we really want to see WWIII.  Obviously, we do not!  The solution however is not bombing Iran before it gets nuclear weapons.  Rather, the primary solution is becoming a moral light so bright that the other nations listen to us.  The solution is listening to what the seer at Fatima had to say in a letter to the Pope from 1982.  It still has application.  Even though the Pope did the requested consecration in 1984 and the Virgin did free us from the Cold War with Russia, the delayed consecration has left us with the consequences of our delay and the spread of moral errors.  Listen to Sister Lucia from the Vatican's own release of the Fatima messages:

The third part of the secret is a symbolic revelation, referring to this part of the Message, conditioned by whether we accept or not what the Message itself asks of us: 'If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, etc.'. 

Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors.  And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfilment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it little by little with great strides.  If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence.

There is greater promise of peace through conversion and the rejection of sin than there is in the might of our arms and pre-emptive strikes which the Church has warned against.

2001: Salt Need Not Lose its Flavor

When Ratizinger gave Seewald his prophetic statement on 'slave beings' in God and the World, he could not have known that just a few months later in 2001 the world would be consumed with George W. Bush's deliberations as to whether to allow further funding for destruction of more human embryos with federal funds.  Such funding had quietly begun in the administration before him.  The whole world watched from early 2001 until early August to see what the superpower of the world would rule concerning human embryonic stem cell research and the use of 'spare' human embryos.  Would it be halted or would the door remain open to the future production of 'slave beings' and human-animal mixes?

Bush came down in favor of protecting human life where federal funds were concerned.  However, the door was left open for laboratories across the U.S. to create and destroy human embryos at will and most of our elected representatives lacked the moral compass to outlaw the horrible affront to human dignity.  Laboratories merely would not receive federal funding involving further destruction of human embryos.  Thirty-three days after Bush's decision, America was terribly shaken.  Its financial center in New York was in flames and its military center in D.C. was disabled.  Travel and finance came to a halt.  The worst attack on American soil in 60 years almost brought America to its knees.  That same morning, the front page of the New York Times had run an article that Congress was demanding more funds for new human embryonic stem cell research.  It was September 11, 2001.

On the coming anniversary of Pearl Harbor (the vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception), America might reflect with its Patroness on the value of every human conception.  America might reflect how the Virgin called America to be a witness to life and used us as God's instrument to preserve civilization.  America might reflect that God has seen to the destruction of nations based on their addiction to the murder of the innocent.  America might decide in its public institutions and its international standing to follow all that Sister Lucia suggested and: "reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence."  With such conversion, there is hope for the future and all humanity.

If we will not reject the path of sin and creating slave beings, we should recall that Our Lady appeared in Fatima as "The Lady of the Rosary".  We launched our response to the attacks of September 11 on October 7 when we rightfully invaded Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda's murderous attack.  October 7 is the "Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary".  What this coincidence will mean for America is still in God's hands.  We only know our freedom will make us responsible and accountable.  The ink was not even dry on press announcements of the recently-discovered ethical means of deriving stem cells before the demonic wails for continuing embryonic research (for "scientific advancement") filled in the air.

"O Mary, conceived without Sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!"