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Fracture and Power
Bishop Barron argues that totalitarian governments of the past century resulted from lack of unity in truth. To the extent that people lose interest in objective truth and prefer isolated fantasies for their own pleasures or ease, government replaces truth as the unifying authority. Control of government becomes a contest of self-interested wills rather than a contest of arguments.
Barron continues by discussing the power of one person’s public devotion to truth for inviting honest witness from others. With each firm profession of shared reality, more people find confidence and courage to live in accordance with truth.
Recently, I have heard a variety of theologians refer to the “divine simplicity” of God. An honest person is a complex person, yet easy to understand and follow because everything that one represents is plainly available. Ask and receive.
That, among other virtues, is what people need today: simplicity. Speak truth for love of truth, without bitterness or anxiety. Live in truth because it is the proper way, trusting that any harsh consequences will be turned toward the good by God. The world is chaotic. We need not be so.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
One of the scourges of the recent Church has been homosexual predation of boys and young men by priests and prelates. That Barron will not condemn Martin’s ministry or raise concerns about Martin’s elevation in the Francis pontificate as a militant advocate for homosexuality and pansexuality in light of how the Church has been damaged by homosexual priests and prelates but instead offer an endorsement of his work should at least raise a few eyebrows. Sorry, but I’m not a go-along to get-along sort of fellow. But I have the sense that Barron tends to be.
Yes. Language always changes. I suppose that happened at Babel. But it seems these days, we’re constantly updating the terms. The human mind is always looking for something new, it seems, and perhaps those trying to capture the attention and get the clicks coin new phrases at the expense of the truth. I feel like this thought wandered off, but maybe it makes a smidgeon of sense.
I watched a discussion recently about the new ideologies we see that in a way are not truly ideologies since they don’t really appear to have a central source. Evil has a central source.
Yes…wonderful that Martin wrote a book on prayer…but what is he praying for?
Well, hopefully not.
Being both a Roman Catholic and a former Totalitarian Marxist (I was in it for the loot as was everyone else I knew and know) I think that Bishop Barron’s definition of Totalitarianism so ridiculously broad that it could be recategorized as Original Sin. Truth?
St. Leonard of Port Maurice: Most Catholics Will Be Damned https://youtu.be/VeMxaadVWc4
It is arguably imprudent. But it is arguably charitable; even an attempt to invite a wayward brother back to orthodoxy.
In the past, the Church has practiced excommunication for the purpose of clarifying the severity of one’s error and the grave need to repent, in prayerful hope that the excommunicated will be shocked into realization. I have been among those who say the bishops have been too lenient with heretical priests and schools. Certainly, Fr Martin and many other priests — even bishops — should have been censured long ago for leading souls into sexual (mortal) sins. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI preferred leniency.
More normally, wayward persons are guided back into the fold through appreciation of what good remains in them and enjoyment of common interests, thereby securing trust and genuine listening, before proceeding to hard corrections. Such invitation and accompaniment should be joined with plain criticism when dealing with public figures, to avoid scandal. Bishop Barron has called for lay investigations of McCarrick and other homosexual predators in the Church. Though too circumspect, I have taken his repeated warnings against fanciful self-creation as deliberately relevant to sexual exhibitionism. But private conversations are typically more productive for conversion. Perhaps Barron has publicly praised Martin’s acceptable work in hope of private correction on other matters.
There is much we don’t know. Some sites look only for the good and others only for the evil. But we never see the whole story. What I do know is that many orthodox Catholics appreciate Bishop Barron’s catechesis on theology and history, which on a whole has not corrupted faith but encouraged it.
I pray one Rosary a week for each of these men: Bishop Barron, Pope Francis, and Theodore McCarrick. In two of these cases, I am the only person praying for them. Not a brag but a challenge.
With respect, that’s the last I will discuss the merits or demerits of Bishop Barron here. I did not intend this post as praise of him, but rather was riffing off some things he said.
A favorite teacher introduced me to the phrase “food for thought”. Whether true or untrue, something said can inspire thoughts worthy of consideration.
Way to read past the headline and set me straight!
There’s only so much time in the day. I certainly don’t read or watch everything recommended on Ricochet, though I would like to. We pick our battles.
The problems I have with Barron’s take on totalitarianism in this video, aside from its lack of depth, are the following:
1) the characterization of young people or people in general presumably constantly declaring their self-actualized identity. If the last 10+ years have demonstrated anything, it’s that people are more than happy to submerge their unique individuality to a group identity.
2) the quick and very superficial understanding of Nietzsche’s work and ignoring the fact that Nietzsche’s granddaughter selectively used his writing to bolster Nazi ideology even as Nietzsche had predicted the horrific and bloody toll on humanity that emerging totalitarian regimes were likely to take (Stephen Hicks, Jordan Peterson and the late American novelist Tom Wolfe all have mentioned Nietzsche’s ominous warning) . He incorrectly translates – as so many have – ubermensch as “superman” when the translation is “overman” as in a man who overcomes ancient superstitions, his prejudices, irrational fears, etc. It can even be argued that what Nietzsche was advancing was the emergence of an intellectually rigorous individuality and definitely not the submergence of the individual to the collective that the Nazi regime demanded because it was after all a national socialist ideology, one that insisted on conformity not debate or dissension.
3) Barron’s seeming blindspot to deal with totalitarian regimes that promote a credo of lies as truth and actually adopt some of the same rituals of different faiths to give their lies the impression of truth so followers incapable of critical thinking who’ve already abandoned themselves to the will of the group would make the transition from beliefs in religious truths to state-dictated truths much easier. Eric Hoffer points this out quite eloquently and succinctly in his book, The True Believer, and finally…
4) I don’t know how its possible to discuss totalitarianism in the 20th Century without mentioning Solzhenitsyn and how Soviet communism came to be and how diehard communists so embraced the lies of the state masquerading as truth so completely that they were dumbfounded when they themselves landed in the Gulags – not realizing that every step of the way they had been lying to themselves.
Jordan Peterson on lying in the Soviet Union and the Gulags:
It seems that libertarian/conservative/enlightenment Christianity breaks down at the dualism of individual and collective.
We want it to be all about the individual and the left wants it all about the collective, but the Bible doesn’t make it one or the other. It is both.
There is a need for individual responsibility, accountability, confession, faith, and calling. But there is also our identity as part of the body of Christ (which is collective!)
Almost like we are created to desire belonging and to be part of a community and to find identity within a group of people of common goal. It is blasted hard to be a Christian on your own. It is blasted hard being ALIVE alone. And the church and family are blessings from God to bolster and affirm and disciple those identities.
Well…yes and no. Yes, clearly Catholics have an obligation to propagate the faith and spread the good word as a community and live faithfully, joyfully as a community, but also seriously and with solemn reflection on Christ’s teaching and the meaning of his Passion, and the quite possible judgement of damnation (the latter obligation to reflect on those aspects of the faith can get smothered in some Novus Ordo masses, especially masses with incessant music or highlighted dancers or priests on rollerblades, or altars festooned with Pride flags).
But Catholic teaching also makes a clear demarcation when it comes to salvation. There is no collective salvation or salvation of the collective. There is only individual salvation based on repentance of sins and following Christ’s teaching faithfully. What totalitarian regimes promise is collective salvation here on Earth, a workers utopia, that will come about if only everyone relinquishes or suppresses their individuality and their individual needs and the needs of their immediate family to the needs of the greater collective. Granted Barron’s video is only about 10 minutes long, so expecting a more thorough examination of totalitarianism as it relates to the individual and to received truth from Christ is probably too much to ask.
I didn’t say there was. I think I clearly said there wasn’t.
But scripture does call attention to how important being part of a community (and community identity) is to being human. It even talks of marriage in very collective terms, where husband and wife are one. And still, each are responsible for their own salvation.
I didn’t say you said there was. I chose to more clearly make the distinction because I felt it was important in relation to what Barron was discussing.