#2 — Community

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It was in an undergrad course on Shakespeare that I first began thinking of Catholicism as an inherently communal religion. Our professor, an ABD who later left academia for construction, was having doubts about Christianity and mentioned that of all options, Catholicism and its strong sense of community appealed to him most. I had no idea what he was talking about: I’d never thought of Catholicism, knew little more of it than Marian devotion, and had no clue how community might play an important part in a religion.

It wasn’t until I attended Mass for the first time in Poland and read Milosz’s The Captive Mind that I understood. Milosz wrote of the wisdom of the Catholic church in its community prayer, pointing out that kneeling and crossing oneself often preceded faith and in fact led to faith. I, in my unbelief, understood this to mean that religious belief is a question of collective suggestion. Reading Peter Berger’s Invitation to Sociology only further strengthened this belief. Yet Berger himself, in A Rumor of Angels, goes to great lengths to point out that something that seems to explain faith naturally does not preclude the supernatural. In other words, faith might very well be a product, to some degree, of a physically encouraged collective consciousness, but that fact alone doesn’t disprove its legitimacy.

Attending Mass put it all in perspective. Seeing everyone moving together, gesturing together, speaking together, had a profound impact on me. The sense of unity and community was literally palpable.

I thought of the vast difference between this voluntary sense of community and the forced May Day parades that everyone behind the Iron Curtain were expected to revel in.  I could explain the Catholic community’s success and the wishful Communist community’s failure in secular terms: after all, I could reason, the why’s and where’s of the gestures and motions of Catholicism are long since forgotten in the mists of antiquity whereas the germination of the Communist community lingers in the historical memory. There seemed to be something more, though, something ineffable.

Perhaps something divine?

Critical Mass

To hear Catholic Mass in one’s own language was, for centuries, impossible for the majority of Catholics. Vatican II changed all that, allowing Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular. As a result, Catholics worldwide hear the same Mass yet different sounds.

Poles in America experience a certain foreigners in the English Mass, regardless of the individuals’ fluency. This goes a long way in explaining the significance of the Polish Mass celebrated in Greenville today. A Polish priest, on loan from Polska, is stationed in Columbia, a mere hour-and-a-half from Greenville. After much persuasion, he came to a little church outside Greenville proper, and probably almost every Pole in a thirty-mile radius was there. The kids stood and knelt at the all the proper times, but being raised in the States, they didn’t know the hymns or the responses/prayers. They seemed lost. I would imagine that’s what they’re like visiting Poland as well: strangers in a land that sounds strangely familiar.

For me, it brought a smile. The first time I ever attended a Catholic Mass was in Poland, and Polish is, for me, the language of liturgy. From hearing alone, I know the prayers and formulations in Polish better than English.

Aside from the language, there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences. Poles still do the mea culpa in the Confiteor. “Moja moja, wina, moja wina, moja bardzo wielka wina,” all chant in the church, jabbing their thumb into their chest with each “moja wina.”

At the end of the Mass, he asked for a show of hands for a commitment to a monthly Polish Mass. Every hand in the church went up, including mine (after some prodding from K — I was simply absent-mindedly daydreaming about the oddity of hearing a Polish Mass after so many years).  Critical mass achieved, the priest then announced that there would, henceforth, be a monthly Polish Mass. Applause broke out, and it was then that the significance of the moment was clear. A bit of their heritage, their youth in Poland, their past given place right here in Greenville, home of Bob Jones University, one of the most virulently anti-Catholic institutions in America.

While I was living in Poland, the closest I ever got to getting a taste of my own culture was to drop into McDonald’s or watch the latest American blockbuster.

Desecration

Ever since I first attended a Catholic mass in person, I’ve been fascinated by the Eucharist and the accompanying theology of transubstantiation: the idea that the host is outwardly bread, but inwardly — substantially — Jesus’ body.

I was once in a basilica when a Eucharist minister tripped and spilled the remaining consecrated hosts on the floor. However, I’d never seen it intentionally desecrated, until now.

A YouTube user, fsmdude, has put up a series of videos in which he desecrates consecrated Eucharist wafers. In one video, he shows how he gets them: he holds them in his mouth until he’s outside the church, then he takes out the host and pockets it.

I must admit: he has some fairly original ways to desecrate the host. He feeds one to a duck, another to Venus Fly Trap, and a third to a groundhog. He grinds one up and burns another with a magnifying glass. Some methods, though, are predictable, like flushing a host down a toilet.

The reaction is what one might guess. A few samples of text comments left on his videos include:

• Satan will do worse to you. Fag.
• Believe me, this toilet was far cleaner than the putrid heart of the Judas who did this.
• i’ll pray for you.

There are also video responses. One video response, from p3martab, was, “This is probably the worst thing you could do to mankind, in terms of its relationship to God.” Yet he continues, “All I’m asking you to do is please stop this.” Another user has initiated a flagging Campaign.

I learned about all of this from Blogging Religiously:

I got an email yesterday from a Catholic group praising YouTube for removing a series of videos showing the desecration of the Holy Eucharist.

But today the group—America Needs Fatima—is reporting the videos are back up on YouTube.

America Needs Fatima has initiated a petition:

It seems you removed a video showing the desecration of a Holocaust memorial and a trailer to a Dutch documentary that claims Islam inspires murder and terror.

But Catholic bashing seems to be acceptable.

I therefore vehemently protest your decision to give a platform for anti-Catholic bigotry. I will urge my friends and family to protest YouTube for as long as it takes, until you change this decision, and no longer facilitate blasphemous postings.

A fairly good point, I think.

However, I want to concentrate on something I haven’t seen: death threats. Some of course are saying, “You’ll burn in hell for this,” but I don’t know of anyone adding, “And I’ll send you there myself!” We don’t see massive protests with people holding sights saying, “Decapitate those who desecrate the Holy Eucharist!”

Instead, we hear someone asking politely, “Please don’t do that.” And as such, I’m more likely to be sympathetic.

I think, though, banning the videos would be the wrong move. User p3martab has the right idea: find out where fsmdude is going to mass and deny him access to the Eucharist.

Simple solution that protects free speech.

A Confession

K and J went to pre-Easter confession last week. As with every single thing when you have an infant, it was well planned well in advance.

“Yet J doesn’t speak English,” I reminded K earlier in the week, when she told me about the plan. “How exactly is this going to work?”

“Well, I’m going to translate.”

Some, when reading “This is supposed to between the priest and the individual”, might have injected, “Um, no it’s between the individual and God.” More information about the Catholic view of forgiveness can be found here.

“Do you think the priest will let you? After all, this is supposed to between the priest and the individual, and anonymous at that. That’s why there’s all the elaborate screens and confessional booths and such.” (I’ve never confessed — my imagery of it is pretty much straight out of movies, and watching from a distance.)

“We’ll see.”

What actually transpired was a somewhat amusing solution to the problem. The priest instructed K, “Tell your mother to say what she needs to say in Polish, then give me a sign that she’s finished.”

J found it both amusing and touching.

Review: Letters Between a Catholic and an Evangelical

McCarthy admits up front, in his foreword, that both he and Waiss had one aim: to convert the other. That the book is published by an evangelical publishing house testifies to the fact that Waiss failed; that the book is not titled “Letters that Converted a Catholic Priest” testifies to the fact that McCarthy failed.

Who won the debate is more a question of readers’ preconceptions than anything else. Catholics will be unconvinced by McCathy’s arguments, and few Protestants will be moved by Waiss’s somewhat bland presentation.

Of the two, McCarthy is much more aggressive, and in many ways, much more rational. But there is a mystical element in Catholicism that doesn’t mix well with pure rationalism. Recall that after consecrating the host in Mass, priest speak of the “Great mystery of faith.”

At the heart of the book is the question of authority: both accept the Bible as an authority, but evangelicals stop there, where as Catholics see Tradition and the Church as on equal footing as the Bible, comprising together the Word of God. Much of the book, then, revolves around Waiss trying to show how the Church’s extra-Biblical notions (i.e., those not specifically detailed in the Bible, such as the papacy, Mary’s Immaculate Conception, etc.) are, in some way, Biblically based while McCarthy chips away at Waiss’s arguments. The tables turn from time to time, especially discussing “sola scriptura,” but by and large, it’s a game of “Prove it from the Bible.”

As such, McCarthy and Waiss toss one phrase (or a derivative) at each other quite often: “No where in the Bible do we find X.” McCarthy fills in the variable with Papal authority, Marian devotion, the importance of Tradition; Waiss replaces “X” with the notion of “sola scriptura,” the Trinity, and a couple of other ideas. With the exception of “sola scriptura,” Waiss’s contention seems to be that McCarthy and evangelicals are essentially “guilty” (my term, not his) of the same thing they accuse Catholics of: incorporation of extra-Biblical doctrines. Waiss could have pushed McCarthy a bit harder on this point, I think, for he doesn’t even mention a host of non-Biblical based notions that “sola scriptura” evangelicals accept: Sunday worship, non-observance of Jewish holidays (i.e., no where in the Bible does it explicitly say that followers of Jesus are to stop observing the Jewish festivals), Easter, and Christmas come to mind.

This shows the Protestant notion of wanting to have its theological cake and eat it, too. Protestantism accepts the early Church councils’ decisions about the New Testament canon, the proper day of Christian assembly, the appropriateness of celebrating Jesus’ birth and resurrection, but most denominations (especially evangelicals) are unwilling to accept the Catholic Church’s continuing authority. This is one of the paradoxes of the Protestant movement, which necessarily implies that the Church started off correctly, but somewhere got tangled up in a mess of legalism and false belief. Sadly, questions like “At which point?” and “Why would God let such a thing happen despite his promise to the contrary?” aren’t mention in the book. It leaves me feeling that Waiss pulled some of his punches.

On the other hand, McCarthy demolishes some Waiss’s arguments in support of Catholic theology. His handling of whether Jesus had half-brothers (i.e., whether Mary remained a virgin her whole life and whether “brothers” in the New Testament should be translated “cousins,” as the Church maintains) is well done, for example.

As I mentioned earlier, who won the debate depends on readers’ preconceptions. As a non-Christian skeptic, I found the debate to be a draw. This is because “Letters” is a debate about the tenants of a religion based on a self-contradictory book, a notion neither McCarthy nor Waiss would take into account. For example, is one saved by faith alone or by faith and works? It depends on where you look in the Bible. Did Saul/Paul’s traveling companions on the road to Damascus hear a voice or not? It depends on which chapter of Acts you read. Does the bread and wine become Jesus’ actual body? It depends on how you read a couple of different NT passages. With such a flawed starting position, a draw is the best outcome either participant could hope for.

When such contradictions arise, the great literal/figurative differentiation arises. Indeed, much of the book also seems to be an argument as to whether or not to interpret this or that passage literally or figurative, with each side accusing the other of taking the passage out of context.

On the other hand, it is refreshing to see debate that doesn’t often (though sometimes, to a slight degree) slip into personal insults. While many Protestants (and this almost always includes fundamentalists, and often includes evangelicals) think the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon and the Pope the Anti-Christ and many Catholics regard Protestants as heretics, McCarthy and Waiss keep things civil the whole time.

One final criticism: the length precluded truly in-depth discussion, and many of McCarthy’s and Waiss’s comments go unanswered.

Overall, I would say it’s an interesting read for the simple fact of seeing to opposing views clearly (though perhaps too succinctly) presented.