Epistula ad episcopum in mundo huius temporis

 

Depiction of repentant slave trader John Newton, author of the hymn Amazing Grace

To His Excellency, the Most Reverend Bishop, Ordinary of Recovering Modern's Diocese,

I greet you in filial love, obedience, and humility. Pax tecum (I'm sorry I can't resist). 

Recent events have forced all of us to confront both the past and ongoing horrors of racism and related inequity in our country, and across the world. I know that fighting racial inequity and making reparation for our nation and our Church's past sins in this area are deeply felt by you and your brother bishops. In fact, I see right now on the USCCB's website two headline links mentioning respect for the dignity of migrant families and encouraging support for pastoral ministry in Africa. 

It is equally encouraging and heartbreaking to know that Holy Mother Church intervened early and forcefully to prevent and then to stop the roots of modern racial injustice. In 1435, Pope Eugene IV in Sicut Dudum excommunicated all who did not, within 15 days, restore to liberty all whom they had taken captive as slaves from the Canary Islands. Likewise in 1537, a few years before the Council of Trent, Pope Paul III in Sublimis Dei commanded, in language similar to that used to confirm infallible teaching, that Native Americans be left at liberty to enjoy their property and that they be brought into the faith through the preaching of the word of God and by holy living. After many similar interventions, Pope Gregory XVI condemned the slave trade and demanded that it cease with In Supremo Apostolatus in 1839. 

And yet today we feel the deep shame and pain of centuries of injustice and victimization because those demands were not met. Over and over, Catholics ignored Church teaching, used legalism to undermine and water down its demands, made excuses about modern economics and necessities, twisted and cherry picked Scripture to justify their misdeeds, framed slavery as the only way to avoid the greater evil of civil war, hid behind a relativism that forbade anyone from telling slave owners what to do with their "property", and continued abusing their fellow man for their own personal comfort and enrichment. Bishops, priests, and laity largely allowed or even encouraged this behavior and did little to hold slave traders and slave owners accountable. 

If we only we had a chance to stand in their shoes, make better choices, prevent those atrocities, and spare millions from the pain and division that resulted. 

Yet we do have that choice. But like Elijah, we must confess that we are no better than our fathers. 

Popes have condemned, early and often, abortion and the contraceptive culture that produces it in Casti Connubii (Pius XI, 1930), Humane Vitae (Paul VI, 1968), Veritatis Splendor (John Paul II, 1993), and in Pope Saint John Paul II's Theology of the Body. 

Yet we live in a society where abortion, like slavery, is tolerated, excused, and promoted by Catholics globally. It is especially damaging to people of color. And all of the same excuses and techniques have appeared: relativism (My body, my choice), cherry picking and twisting of Scripture (Judas received Communion!), hairsplitting legalism (It's not infallible teaching!), the economic hardship of single mothers, and false "lesser of two evils" scenarios. 

History teaches us that nothing, not even tolerance for a particular grave sin, lasts forever. Should we continue down our current path, the Church of future generations will suffer for its tolerance of abortion as the present Church does for its tolerance and promotion of the western slave trade and racism. Those who come after us may leave the Church, reject our nation and its heritage, and hold us in contempt for our refusal to hold the abortion industry and its enablers accountable. 

I pray earnestly that we make a different choice, and remove Christ's promised millstone from our necks. I pray that you, as successor to the Apostles, will hold each and every one of us, particularly me and any chief magistrates of the US federal government whom you may meet in the course of your business, accountable for doing so. 

Christus vincit,

Recovering Modern
11th Sunday after Pentecost

Scientific Statements

Science is the practice of acquiring knowledge through testing hypotheses through experimentation, recording observations, and drawing conclusions. 

Truly science-based statements are rare for a few reasons. 

One is that the scientific process is carried out by human beings. And, because of Original Sin, the human intellect is darkened. We do not see the world as it truly is, and we do not practice integrity when performing scientific experiments and forming conclusions. We conduct scientific investigation with the veils of self-interest, tribalism, and confirmation bias over our eyes. 

A truly science-based statement is a conclusion directly based upon real observation, using terms that are clearly defined and testable. More often, the "science-based" statements we see are instead the personal preferences and biased conclusions of the speaker. 

Take a recent email I received from Virginia Senator Mark Warner (D), assuring me that "These vaccines are extremely safe." Or the billboard on the highway, along with vaccines.gov, proclaiming that the Covid-19 vaccine is "safe and effective." 

These are not scientific statements. They are not based on real observations. They use undefined terms that cannot be verified scientifically. What does "extremely safe" mean? 

A scientific statement would say "We have not observed serious, lingering adverse side effects over one year, across clinical trials of 44,000 people and 4.28 billion administered doses."

The observations necessary to declare a treatment "safe" do not exist when that treatment is less than 16 months old, and human life expectancy is greater than 16 months post vaccination. The damaging health effects of DDT, asbestos, thalidomide, PCBs, Vioxx, feeding infants formula over breastmilk, and over-prescription of antibiotics took years to become widely recognized. 

As a College Genetics professor of mine told us starry eyed environmentalists: you can never prove that something is safe. You can only list the effects you have and have not observed, the limitations of those observations, and the likelihood of additional effects based on prior observations of similar objects.

Far from blocking the progress of science, a theology preaching absolute moral standards demands that scientific experimentation and publications be done with integrity. Sound theology also demands that we appreciate real limits on what can and cannot be proven by empirical science broadly, and by specific experiments and individuals on the ground. 

And be aware that, as science itself verifies, not all published scientific conclusions are valid and reproducible: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regress. 

The [2015 Open Science Collaboration] OSC was the biggest attempt yet to check a field’s results, and the most shocking. In many cases, they had used original experimental materials, and sometimes even performed the experiments under the guidance of the original researchers. Of the studies that had originally reported positive results, an astonishing 65 percent failed to show statistical significance on replication, and many of the remainder showed greatly reduced effect sizes.

Roller Coasters and Motu Proprios

In High School, our senior class trip was to Six Flags New England. As we got onto one of the roller coasters, one of my friends said to my friend Tom "You need to take off your backpack! The sign says you can't bring it!" 

Tom replied: "It doesn't say you can't, it just says we recommend that you don't."

Art. 4. Priests ordained after the publication of the present Motu Proprio, who wish to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962, should submit a formal request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before granting this authorization.

Art. 5. Priests who already celebrate according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 should request from the diocesan Bishop the authorization to continue to enjoy this faculty.

As many have pointed out, including priests who celebrate traditional liturgy and are knowledgeable about canon law, "should" and "consult" are different from "must", "can't", "forbidden", etc. 

Draw your own conclusions. 

Quid fecit tibi?

The vast majority of celebrations of traditional liturgy are not "characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself". Sed contra, the bastions of traditional liturgy are often found among the two Ecclesia Dei orders who are very careful not to tread on Church authorities, the validity of the new liturgy, or the legitimacy of the Council. 

Moreover, we are in the ninth year of this pontificate, and serious attempts to restrict the celebration of traditional liturgy only began last year with restrictions on private Masses in St. Peter's Basilica and the survey issued to the bishops on the implementation of Summorum Pontificum. 

In fact, Pope Francis granted SSPX clergy the faculty to celebrate the sacrament of penance licitly for the Year of Mercy in 2015, then extended this faculty in Misericordia et Misera in 2016(1). During 2015, Bishop Athanasius Schneider was also sent to visit SSPX seminaries in the United States and in France, at the request of the Holy See. 

We're left with two questions. Why does the Pope feel compelled to restrict traditional liturgy in the belief that its devotees are rejecting the Council? And what changed between 2016, when the Pope was going far toward accommodating the SSPX and those who frequent its sacraments, and 2020 when he began moves to restrict traditional liturgy?

Is there a vocal figure, familiar to the Pope, who has more recently begun to celebrate traditional liturgy and who is "characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself"?

Gee, I wonder. 

(1): https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2020/04/23/attend-sspx-church-parish-closed/

Incipit

 

As we ponder Traditionis Custodes, a question should come to mind. Where did the modern rejection of Catholic tradition and doctrine really start? 

I would invite the faithful to look not at the response to Humanae Vitae, nor the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, nor even the Modernist travails of the early 1900s. No, the real answer is something a bit closer to home: our financial portfolios. 

Until recently, I was dimly aware that once upon a time the Church had condemned usury. And, like everyone else, I assumed that said teaching was outdated because the nature of money and economics had fundamentally changed, etc. 

But wait a second. Isn't that the exact same logic and language that is used to justify everything else that is cringeworthy in the modern Church? The world has changed, modern people are different, the Church needs to take a different approach, etc. Name an issue, that's the refrain, as plain and common as "Gather Us In." 

So what's usury? Well, Pope Benedict XIV's papal encyclical Vix Pervenit tells us.

The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.

Clear enough? No? If you're a legalist like me, you probably have the usual modern "what abouts" crowding your mind, so I'll let His Holiness correct us:

One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made...

Christian minds should not think that gainful commerce can flourish by usuries or other similar injustices. On the contrary We learn from divine Revelation that justice raises up nations; sin, however, makes nations miserable.

Not exactly a lot of gray area is there? Simply put, a loan contract in which an individual borrower is required to return more than what was loaned, and in which the lender can go after the borrower personally, rather than a piece of property (say, a house or a car), is usurious. And usury is always wrong (yes, even today). 

As this exhaustive FAQ from financially literate Zippy Catholic goes on to explain, usury is wrong because 1) It requires borrowers to pay something for nothing, making it a form of theft, 2) It allows lenders to claim assets (interest on assets loaned) that do not actually exist, 3) It makes individuals into objects by making them, rather than specific property, the object of a loan. 

Vix Pervenit was issued in 1745. If you think the modern Church is weak kneed on contraception, it's positively impotent on usury. A quick search reveals that while recent Popes have occasionally mentioned it in audiences with anti usury groups, Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate is the only Pope since Pius XI (back in 1926) to mention it in an encyclical. 

Given what we know about the Church's financial dealings, and the significant percentage of Catholic mutual funds invested in "financial services" companies, it's likely that even faithful Catholic organizations are heavily invested in usurious companies. 

And so are we. We may pride ourselves on making sacrifices to follow Catholic moral teaching. But would we sacrifice our rewards credit cards, largely built on charging usury to the poor? How much of our 401k, Roth, or mutual fund returns come from companies driven by usury? Do we want to find out?

Many complain about the modern Church's refusal to enforce moral truths. But the issues most of us think about only appeared after centuries of wearing away Church teaching on usury. It seems to me, that's the real foundation of the modern derision and indifference toward traditional Church teaching and practice. 

And it's not hard to draw the historical and philosophical connection between tolerance of usury and both modern socialism and crony capitalism, neither of which are friends to tradition. 

So we have an opportunity: an opportunity to restore the Church's moral teaching in our own lives. We also have an opportunity to teach the nonbelievers we know that the Church has a solution to the many economic evils roiling our society, one that steps out of the usual political box that people like to paint around the Church. Let's get started.