The Return of Baal and Asherah

 

Anyone who has read the Old Testament is bound to have asked how the Israelites could have been so stupid as to repeatedly worship false gods. Couldn’t they see that these gods were not real, could not save them, and that their worship always had bad consequences? We may have our own problems, but we’re not stupid enough to commit actual idolatry with false gods in such a blunt fashion. 

There is a problem with this reasoning. Two of the most popular idols in Ancient Israel were Baal and Asherah. 

Baal was a Canaanite storm god. Asherah was a local fertility goddess. And in extreme cases, the Israelites slaughtered their own children as an offering to the Moabite god Moloch. 

In the contemporary West there are few causes that attract more devotion, and stifle dissent more, than climate change and sexual expression. 

I know many people at work who devote their whole public lives (career, politics) and much of their private lives (housing, diet) to climate change. Many people, from the height of western political and corporate power down to penniless college students insist that humanity must change everything about economic life, technology, and much of politics to resolve climate change. 

I know many people, including some in my own family whose sense of self is driven mainly by sexuality. I have an elderly relative who often has a book with him when I see him once or twice a year. Since the Windsor and Obergefell rulings though, the books I see him reading have mostly been driven by homosexuality. The recent books have focused on Barney Frank, Neil Patrick Harris, the emperor Hadrian, and Harvey Fierstein. 

The US Supreme Court has banned states from restricting contraception’s availability to people as young as 16. The US federal government has mandated that most employers provide contraception free to employees. No fault divorce is enshrined in the law of most US states. Planned Parenthood is the US’s largest abortion provider and is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country. 

Even the hint of a suggestion that certain forms of sexual expression might be restricted in some states in the US provokes a massive backlash, even among people like the current US President who aren’t personally interested in sex outside marriage, abortion, homosexuality, or alternative forms of sexuality.

As Maui says in the movie Moana: it’s nice to see that humans never change. 

The Fasting Trigger

 

“As soon as you enter the city, you will find him, before he goes up to the high place to eat; for the people will not eat till he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice; afterward those eat who are invited."- 1 Samuel 9:13

Yesterday, the topic of the immemorial Eucharistic fast (no food and water from midnight until receiving the Eucharist) came up in conversation. The immediate response was: “The Church requires one hour, we don’t want to be holier than the Church.” This is almost identical to a response I received from a friend when I encouraged him to look into it a couple of years ago. And when I described my typical Ash Wednesday and Good Friday Black Fast routine to another friend a few years ago, the “holier than the Church” response was also immediate. Two of these friends are priests. 

I can’t understand this attitude. It is true the Church requires a fast of one hour before receiving the Eucharist (canon 919). It’s also true that the Church requires both the sacrament of confession and the reception of Communion once a year (the latter laid out in canon 920, right next to the current fasting requirement). The Church also requires attending Mass on Sundays. 

I’ve never heard any serious Catholic reject the practice of confessing, receiving Communion more than once a year, or attending daily Mass as harmful, or as a pretentious attempt at being “holier than the Church.” 

Pius XII’s Christus Dominus changed the midnight fast to three hours, but he made it clear that those physically able to observe the traditional fast should do so:

We wish also to admonish those who are able to observe that same law that they should continue diligently to observe it, so that only those who need these concessions can enjoy them according to the nature of their need.

While I can’t find the document in which Paul VI changed the fast to one hour, the FSSP calendar in my room assures me that Paul VI expressed the same spirit of “those who can, should observe the traditional fast”.

What is it about fasting, and the traditional Eucharistic fast in particular, that provokes this harsh, almost defensive reaction?  

Judean Kings and Popes

 

The stories of the Judean kings of David’s dynasty are given to us in Scripture to show us what good and bad spiritual leadership look like. They are meant as examples for all ages. They show leaders what to do and what to avoid, and they help the faithful understand whether their leaders are acting rightly or wrongly. Notably, the best kings are those who eliminated false worship. 

There are obvious parallels with the papacy. Both were founded on the faith of the first ruler: David’s faith and Peter’s confession of faith. Both contain stories of those first rulers committing grave sin, repenting, and being forgiven. And both contain sterling men and dreadful men. 

Therefore, it’s fair for us to see Popes through this lens. 

Judean king: Josiah

Pope: Saint Pius X

Josiah was one of the few kings to eliminate the high places of pagan worship. Pius X launched an aggressive campaign against heresy, in particular Modernism. Josiah did his best to restore the fullness of temple worship. Pius X made great efforts to restore sacred music and a strong sense of Eucharistic faith to the Church by ensuring First Communion was administered at the age of reason, and not at adolescence.  Josiah found the Mosaic law and demanded it be read aloud to all the people. Pius X codified the Code of Canon Law. 

Both died during and because of an outbreak of war. 

Their efforts did not produce the lasting effects these men sought. Judea quickly returned to idolatry after Josiah’s death (and archaeological evidence of idols in private homes suggest they never really left it). Likewise, Catholics generally preferred nationalism and assimilation to Christendom, obeying their suicidal national war cries without question. And we all now what happened fifty years later, in the 1960s. 

Judean king: Hezekiah

Pope: Pius XII

Hezekiah begin co-reigning with his father Ahaz, much like Pius XII (then Cardinal Pacelli) exercised significant power as Cardinal Secretary of State under Pius XI. As Hezekiah fought against false worship, Pius XII fought against Nazism, fascism, and communism going back to his time as a nuncio in Germany in the 1920s. He had no qualms about publicly reprimanding out-of-line clerics, including Cardinal Innitzer after the Austrian cardinal welcomed the anschluss and Father Leonard Feeney due to his overly stringent teaching of “outside the Church there is no salvation.” 

As Hezekiah trusted in the Lord when the enemy was ravaging the land, Pius XII likewise was a public voice of continued faith as Europe was annihilated and Italy itself was a focal point of the war. 

Both went through a gut wrenching illness. Hezekiah’s is dramatically related in the canticle in Isaiah 38. Pius XII’s began in 1954, and led him to treatment that produced hallucinations and nightmares. 

Both were sidetracked by politics toward the end of their reigns. Hezekiah proudly showed the Babylonians all he had in the aftermath of the Assyrian attack on Judea. Pius XII likewise became “NATO’s chaplain”, throwing the Vatican’s lot in with the secular postwar order of the western allies. Pius XII also prioritized material aid to postwar Europe over a fundamental effort to restore Europe’s spiritual health. Both rulers thus cozied up to regimes that would sow the seeds of later destruction. 

The legacy of both is tarnished by their last years. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, born in the extra years of life granted to Hezekiah after his illness, became one of the most wicked kings in Judean history. Pius XII revved up the “liturgical reforms”, throwing out Holy Week, the ranking of the saints’ feasts in the calendar, and small but noticeable aspects of the Mass like multiple Collects and proper last Gospels. He also put in position those who would annihilate the Mass in the decade after his death. 

Both ultimately failed to inculcate virtue in their successors and administrators. Manasseh presided over mass immorality so bad that it doomed Judea to destruction regardless of Josiah’s later repentenace. Many of the bishops who failed to act against heretical theology, liturgical abuses, or who publicly denounced Humanae Vite and Catholic tradition were appointed by Pius XII (though so was Bishop Wojtyla). Paul VI was mentored for decades by Pius XII and led the Church into a full blown crisis from which it has not emerged. 

Judean King: Jehoshaphat

Popes: John Paul II and Benedict XVI

Jehoshaphat was a good man who followed the Lord. “Yet, the [pagan] high places were not taken away.” Not only that, but Jehoshaphat continually allied himself with King Ahab of Israel despite abundant evidence, and warnings from the prophets, that Ahab was a bad man who would bring judgment down upon Israel. The effects were disastrous: Ahab’s line intermarried with Jehoshaphat’s, leading to mass murder within the Judean royal family. 

Saint John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI were both good men who followed the Lord with their hearts. But they were not willing to take away the high places of false worship. Heretical catechesis, shockingly irreverent liturgy, public contradiction of Church doctrine by prominent Catholic figures all continued largely unchecked during their reigns. 

And they could not bring themselves to break their alliance with the extreme reform party that triumphed in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. Historian Roberto de Mattei indicates that John Paul II let those men appoint most bishops throughout his 27 year reign. This includes appointing Theodore McCarick to the position of cardinal, despite clear warnings from trustworthy figures about his history of sexual abuse. 

The results are reminiscent of the turmoil in Judea, both within the Church hierarchy and within the wider world. 

Judean King: Ahaz

Pope: Francis

King Ahaz sought to aggressively copy the worship of the politically powerful of the day, to the point of building a Syrian style altar in the temple. The current papacy seems no different, with the synod on synodality mischaracterizing proceedings to favor a liberal agenda that contradicts Church doctrine, the well known episode of the pachamama at the Amazon Synod, the almost slavish prioritization of liberal political causes like climate change and immigration, and the desperate attempts to ban the traditional Mass that looks so different from the worship of most of today’s elites. 

Ahaz would not listen to Isaiah and favored political alliances with the powerful, like Assyria, over trust in the Lord and fidelity to his law. Likewise the modern Church hierarchy continuously seeks “renewal” by warping Church doctrine and liturgy to please those who hold political and financial power, mostly political and social progressives in Western nations. 

Honorable Mention-

Judean King: Rehoboam

Pope: Urban VI

Urban’s heavy handed rule drove the cardinals of the day to start the Great Western Schism, which last for 40 years, much as Rehoboam’s rough treatment of the northern tribes of Israel led to the permanent secession of the 10 northern tribes from rule by the Davidic royal family.