Abbey-Roads2

Not the saint.

I like reading Athanasius Contra Mundum- he’s a very smart fellow.  When I first read him a long time ago I got angry because he actually dared to be critical of John Paul II, while he had the audacity to claim he was more Catholic than the Pope.  He was joking about the more Catholic than the Pope bit, but he was serious in his opinion of JPII.  When I settled down, I realized he did indeed have some valid points, and best of all, I understood I did not have to endorse all of them.  Very often, his thoughts can help introduce a more sober perspective upon Catholic issues and “trends” such as the cult of celebrity which surrounded the “personality” of JPII.

A trad crying out in the wilderness.

Athanasius is a true Traditionalist and recently he wrote on the small “t” Traditionalism, which happens to be a very important part of the whole.  (And also may be why he is not fond of the addition of the Mysteries of Light to the Rosary.)  It is a lot to digest, but well worth the read, I can’t do it justice to discuss it myself, so I suggest you read his essay here.  

Within the body of the article, Mr. Athanasius touches on some issues I have often thought about but was never quite able to articulate.  (See the difference between someone really smart and someone barely literate.)  Anyway, I’ll post a few tidbits of his stuff that I wish I had said…  Athanasius’ words are in italics.  (And after reading this, don’t say mean things about him because I like him.  You can say mean things about me though.)

I wish I said that.

Well - not this first paragraph so much - but the fact Mr. Athanasius sees something off on post-Angelica EWTN resonates with me:

People think I’m nuts when I say I find EWTN kind of liberal. There was one point in my life when I changed all of my tv watching to EWTN, maybe when I was 19 or 20. By the time I was 22, and nearly a full fledged Trad, I dropped all television period. So it has been 7 or 8 years since I paid attention to EWTN, but that is how I look back on the programing once Mother Angelica left, as left leaning. So when I listened to more or less the same apologists who were on the tv years ago, or whose books I read years ago, I have made note of some things I find disturbing and only confirm my original analysis.  - Mr. Athanasius

EWTN hype.

First off, there are announcers who try to “hype” up certain apologists in ways reminiscent of the cultish atmosphere surrounding athletes and secular stars. One program announcing Tim Staples called him”The Church’s foremost apologist today”. In deference to Mr. Staples, he is a good apologist and he did not say that. But the commercial makes a pretty bold and in my opinion preposterous claim… I want it to be clear that my polemic is not against the apologist in question, namely Tim Staples, but of EWTN for making such an absurd claim. - Mr. A.

Putting the knife to the heart of the matter:

Second, and more disturbing to me personally, is the belittling of “t” Tradition by virtually every apologist who appears on EWTN radio, and who has been on their television or writes books in the neo-conservative mainstream of modern Catholics.

This is basically the position of Karl Keating, and Jimmy Akin, as well as Dave Armstrong and Mark Shea, not to mention some others, who are converts separated from historical Catholicism by the modernism pervading the Church since the Council. In a minute I will define what I mean by historical Catholicism.  Mr. A.

Twist that knife.

…There are people who conform their worldview to what this or that apologist writes. Consider those who remained completely in favor of the Iraq war, just as the mainstream of neo-conservative apologists were, when their hero, John Paul “superstar” condemned it? You get a situation where I, one of the late Pope’s critics, agree with him, and your ever faithful apologists opposed him! Yet no claims of disobedience arose, and when confronted with it they will ignore you or say they just cut the Pope some slack by not criticizing him. Seriously, is that not private judgment? To decide that the Pope’s consistent and impassioned pleas against the war have no merit because we trust our elected leaders? The same ones who enabled abortion contrary to the late Pope’s message of a gospel of life? - Mr. A.

Those lay apologists.

…The ministry of lay apologetics is precarious at best. They are filling a void which our Bishops and Priests ought to be filling in terms of real and true teaching. The problem and the danger, not unlike what everyone is always whining about with blogs, is when they get looked upon as a counter magisterium. Mind you, not when they try and usurp that for themselves, although such is theoretically possible, I’m not aware of lay apologists doing that. Yet, when you have a radio show hailing this or that apologist as the foremost thinker in the Church, on no other grounds than that network’s credibility to make such a claim there is a great danger, and when they are wrong there is an even greater danger. If I’m wrong on a medium which requires patience and thought (while siting sources), I can be corrected or refuted. What do you do about thousands of Catholics who don’t know any better and follow this disconnect from historical Catholicism that various ex protestants seem to carry with them to the faith? This is to me something highly problematic, even where the thinker is technically a good Catholic. - Mr. A.

I wonder what he thinks about Dawn Eden?

[Photo at top of man with a pipe - that's Mr. Athanasius.  Photo of cat at bottom, the family pet, Mr. Quilly.]