Deeply Catholic Karolina Kózka, a 16-year-old Polish girl died while resisting an attempted rape by a Russian soldier near her village of Wał-Ruda, Poland. The soldiers stabbed her to death. Pope John Paul II beatified her as a "martyr of Christ" in 1987.
The First Prayer of the Continental Congress was delivered.
O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their Cause and if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, of own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle!
Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that order, harmony and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.
Amen.
Reverend Jacob Duché
Rector of Christ Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a.m.
The effect of this opening prayer was profound.
St. Pope Pius X became the first Pope to ride in an automobile.
But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious,callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good,traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so they also oppose the truth—people of depraved mind, unqualified in the faith.But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be plain to all, as it was with those two.
_-_The_Last_Supper_(1495-1498).jpg)
A very interesting Canadian agriculturalist whom I follow on Twitter (I don't care with Elon Musk calls it), who is also an Eastern Rite Catholic, noted that he, like me, didn't watch the Olympic opener (as will be noted, I watched the very start of it, grew bored, and wondered off). So he, like me, was left with the media accounts, of which there are plenty, including video, of a group of drag queens mocking Da Vinci's The Last Supper. He goes on to make the point that the sex laden transvestite portrayal was likely calculated to offend, but that The Last Supper is not an icon, which is quite correct.
But, with some exception, the Latin Rite lacks icons. While not the same, the great Medieval and Renaissance works of art in the West tended to be commissioned by the Church, so they have an association with it. Put another way, in order to offend to the degree as denigrating an icon, there'd be little other choice. 1 Again, it's not an icon, but part of a set of religious works of art commissioned by and associated with Christianity in the West.
It's hard to grasp why this would occur, but the outrage in the Catholic Church, and there is a lot of it, is justified. So is the embarrassment in some French circles, particularly French conservative ones. The French far right came with in a gnat's breath of taking over the French government two weeks ago and the ultimate makeup of the upcoming French government is still unknown. Had this happened before the election, I have a strong feeling that the French far right would be forming a government now.
That provides a topic for another thread, which we will address, but we'll note here. Part of the rise of National Conservatism and Christian Nationalism, and even just far right populism, is due to debauchery such as this.
The Olympics itself was quick to claim that the portrayal wasn't not of The Last Supper, which of course is an Italian, not a French, Renaissance work, noting on Twitter:
The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.
Hmm. . . Dionysus is a Greek mythological figure, not a French one. . .
Dionysus was the Greek god of is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. His Roman equivalent was Bacchus. While celebrated in Roman times, the Romans also restricted unofficial celebrations dedicated to Bacchus due to the excess he was associated with it.
Whatever else Dionysus may stand for or have stood for, it certainly had nothing to do with being against violence between human beings. He really had a lot more to do with booze, drunkenness, sex and insanity, and its interesting that the ancient Greeks linked all of them together. Eirene or Irene was the divinity associated with peace, but she didn't engage in drunken excess.
Another Olympic official also reacted with a series of excuses that were fairly lame. Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, said the display was about "inclusion".
When we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone, questions are raised. Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.
Whatever diversity means, it doesn't mean "being together". At least to some significant degree, it means being apart, and in the modern era, when this is being self defined in a way contrary to nature, it literally means being a Dionysus until one's self.
Jolly noted:
In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.
Um, okay.
Le Filip, the winner of Drag Race France season three, probably got it more accurate.
I thought it would be a five-minute drag event with queer representation. I was amazed. It started with Lady Gaga, then we had drag queens, a huge rave, and a fire in the sky. It felt like a crowning all over again. I am proud to see my friends and queer people on the world stage.2
Whatever a person thinks of it, Le Filip grasped it better than Jolly did, quite frankly.
For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.o
St. Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 3.
A portion of France, particularly urban France, has waged war with the Church and Christianity since the failed French Revolution. Like all the revolutions that were conducted by populist mobs, their god was their belly and they turned on the Church. The same is true of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Mexican Revolution. The Church stands for the proposition that there is something greater, much greater, than us, where as populism of the left and right, at the end of the day, doesn't. Modern "progressivism", heir to the extreme left that arose in 1798 and 1917 has the same ethos, rejecting anything outside of ourselves and rising each person to an individual Bacchus no matter how much a person's own nature may be corrupted in one fashion or another, as individual natures are the only thing that matters. The portrayal at the Olympic opener celebrated that ethos shamefully mocking Christianity in favor of a world outlook that goes no deeper than a person's gentiles. Their glory, is their shame.
The storms that are raging around you will turn out to be for God’s glory, your own merit, and the good of many souls.
St. Padre Pio.
I'll be frank that I quit watching the opening ceremonies of Olympic games some time ago. I think the last one I actually watched was the Moscow Olympics, which is now quite some time back. They've ceased to make sense to me. The Olympics are ostensibly about sports, not about the glorification of the country where they're held, or drag queens. Indeed, I've frankly lost interest in the Olympics themselves for some reason.
This really reinforces that view, particularly as to this particular Olympics.
I feel they should just be permanently placed in Greece, for the summer games.
Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.
Galatians, Chapter 6.
I suspect most of the viewing audience will simply regard this attack on Catholicism as part of the show, shrug it off, and move on. In doing so, they benefit from the liberal culture the Church created in the West and the fact that central to the Christian worldview is turning the other cheek. In contrast, France has a very large Muslim population that nobody would dare attack in such a fashion, a cartoon depicting Mohammed for instance famously resulting in murder. There will be no drag queens taking on an Islamic topic. None. Islam doesn't turn the other cheek. Likewise, Hinduism, which of course would be completely foreign to France, can't be attacked in this fashion either without almost immediate retribution.3
Catholics aren't going to do that, nor will the rest of the Christian world.
Which doesn't mean that the offense should be ignored.
Footnotes:
1. One religious image that has endured this is the tilmahtli associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe. Back when there was a print Playboy magazine, the company issued a Mexican edition with a Mexican woman featured on the cover replicating the image in a pornographic fashion, which brought a firestorm of criticism.
That, and this, give credence to those who claim a diabolical origin to these events.
2. Are there no French singers to do an Olympic opening? Why Stefani Germanotta as the opening act? That alone is embarrassing for France.
Having said that, the Marseilles was beautifully sung by Axelle Saint-Cirel. They should have just stopped right there.
In case anyone wonders, my watching of the show was basically bookended by those two acts. I grew tired of the masked boofador running over roofs and wondered off to take a shower and watch something else.
3. One religion that has endured something like this is the LDS, Mormon, faith. Target of the satiric comedic The Book Of Mormon, it's basically shrugged it off, probably figuring, correctly, that as a minority religion, it might actually benefit from being mocked, as it at least puts a spotlight on it. I'd guess, however, that Mormons aren't keen on the portrayal, and while I've never seen it, and I'm not a Mormon, I'm not either. As noted, nobody would put on a Broadway satiric "The Koran", nor should they.
By this time, most observant conservative Catholics are either so fatigued from Papal issuances that they either disregard them, or cringe when they come out. They seem to come out with a high degree of regularity.
And, while we don't technically have a new one, a "study document" issued by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity has put out something that has the Pope's approval to be issued, that being something that looks at the role of the Papacy itself:
Now, it's a very large document, so I'm not going to attempt to put it all out here, and I haven't read all of it either. So, we're going to turn to The Pillar to find out what it holds. The Pillar states:
What does it say?
Helpfully, the text has a section summarizing the four sections (beginning on p106).
1) Regarding responses to Ut unum sint, the document says that the question of papal primacy is being discussed in “a new and positive ecumenical spirit.”
“This new climate is indicative of the good relations established between Christian communions, and especially between their leaders,” it says.
2) Concerning disputed theological questions, the text welcomes what it calls “a renewed reading” of the classic “Petrine texts,” which set out the Apostle Peter’s role in the Church.
“On the basis of contemporary exegesis and patristic research, new insights and mutual enrichment have been achieved, challenging some traditional confessional interpretations,” it notes.
One particularly controversial issue, it says, is the Catholic conviction that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established de iure divino (by divine law), “while most other Christians understand it as being instituted merely de iure humano” (by human law).
But the document says that new interpretations are helping to overcome “this traditional dichotomy, by considering primacy as both de iure divino and de iure humano, that is, being part of God’s will for the Church and mediated through human history.”
Another enduring obstacle is the First Vatican Council. But the document says that here too there has been “promising progress,” thanks to ecumenical dialogues that seek “a ‘rereading’ or ‘re-reception’” of the Council’s decrees.
This approach, it says, “emphasizes the importance of interpreting the dogmatic statements of Vatican I not in isolation, but in the light of their historical context, of their intention and of their reception — especially through the teaching of Vatican II.”
Addressing this point in a June 13 Vatican News interview, Cardinal Koch said that since Vatican I’s “dogmatic definitions were profoundly conditioned by historical circumstances,” ecumenical partners were encouraging the Catholic Church to “seek new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention, integrating them into an ecclesiology of communion and adapting them to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”
“There is therefore talk of a ‘re-reception,’ or even ‘reformulation,’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” the Swiss cardinal explained.
3) Summarizing the document’s third section, the text says that fresh approaches to disputed questions have “opened new perspectives for a ministry of unity in a reconciled Church.”
Crucially, the document suggests there is a common understanding that although the first millennium of Christian history is “decisive,” it “should not be idealized nor simply re-created since the developments of the second millennium cannot be ignored and also because a primacy at the universal level should respond to contemporary challenges.”
From the ecumenical dialogues, it’s possible to deduce “principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” the text says.
One is that there must be an interplay between primacy and synodality at every level of the Church. In other words, there is a need for “a synodal exercise of primacy.”
Synodality is notoriously difficult to define, but the document describes it at one point as “the renewed practice of the Synod of Bishops, including a broader consultation of the whole People of God.”
4) Among the practical suggestions for a renewed exercise of the ministry of unity, the document highlights the possibility of “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation’, ‘official interpretation’, ‘updated commentary’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I.”
It also stresses appeals for “a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome, especially between his patriarchal ministry in the Church of the West and his primatial ministry of unity in the communion of Churches, both West and East.”
“There is also a need to distinguish the patriarchal and primatial roles of the Bishop of Rome from his political function as head of state,” the text says, adding: “A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the pope in his own particular Church, the Diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy.”
The new document appears months after Pope Francis restored the title “Patriarch of the West” among the list of papal titles in the Vatican’s annual yearbook, after it was dropped by his predecessor Benedict XVI.
Commenting on that development at the June 13 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Koch said that neither Francis nor Benedict XVI offered detailed explanations for the change.
“But I am convinced they did not want to do something against anyone, but both wanted to do something ecumenically respectful,” he commented.
Another suggestion is for the Catholic Church to further develop its practice of synodality, particularly through “further reflection on the authority of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.”
Finally, the text mentions a request for regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level, in a spirit of “conciliar fellowship.”
What does that mean?
Well, frankly, I don't grasp it.
Without having read it, I sort of vaguely grasp that the Pope, who recently revived using the title Patriarch of the West, is sort of modeling this view of the Papacy on the Churches of the East, sort of. In the East, each Church is autocephalous, with the Patriarch of Constantinople holding a "first among equals" position. I don't think the Pope intends to fully go in that direction, but vaguely suggest that the synodal model of the East should apply more in the West, and that as Patriarch of the West, perhaps the entire Apostolic Church could be reunited, and perhaps even sort of vaguely include the "mainline" Protestant Churches, by which we'd mean the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.
It sort of interestingly brings up the Zoghby Initiative of the 1970s, in which Melkite Greek Catholic Church bishop Elias Zoghby sought to allow for inter-communion between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox Church after a short period of dialogue. His position was, basically, that this reunion could occur with a two point profession of faith, those being a statement of belief in the teaching gof the Eastern Orthodox churches and being in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops "according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation."
Thing was, there really were no limits. In the first thousand years before the separation it's pretty clear that the Pope was head of the Church. Indeed, from the earliest days that was recognized.
Bishop Zoghby's initiative went nowhere and he's since passed on, but this sort of interestingly recalls it. His effort received criticism from figures within Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church, although a few Eastern Catholics admired it. Here, I'd predict that conservative Catholics are not going to be too impressed.
Additionally, a recent problem barely noticed in the West is that the recent focus of Pope Francis on blessings for people in irregular unions, which is widely interpreted to mean homosexuals, has not only upset conservative Catholics, but Eastern Churches in some cases have backed away from the Catholic Church. One Eastern Bishop who was getting quite close to Rome came out and stated that Fiducia Supplicans basically prevented any chance of reunion with his church.
This gets back to some things we've noted here before. One is that this Papacy seems very focused on Europe, although the fact that this also looks towards the East cuts against that statement a bit. Having said that, a good deal of the early focus of this Papacy was on European conditions, which have continued to be a problem as the German Church is outright ignoring Pope Francis to a large degree. Loosening the role of the Papacy may stand to make those conditions worse, and probably won't bring the mainstream of the Lutherans and Anglicans in. Which gets to the next point. The Reformation is dying.
Seemingly hardly noticed is that the real story in Christianity, to a large degree, is the rapid decline in the old Reformation Protestant churches. People like to note "well Catholic numbers are declining too", but frankly real statistical data shows that while there may be a decline, it's slight. Indeed, what appears to be occurring in the Western World is that conversions to Catholicism offset departures. That's not growth, but what that sort of shows is the decline in cultural affiliation with a certain religion and, at least in the US, the end of the byproduct of the Kennedy Era Americanization of the Church. Indeed, at the same time this is going on, the growth in Catholic conservatism and traditionalism in younger generations has grown too big to ignore.1 At the same time, Eastern Catholic Churches are gaining members from outside their ethnic communities, and the Easter Orthodox are gaining adherents from conservative Protestants who are leaving their liberalizing denominations.
This is a study document, so it's not a proclamation. Twenty years ago or maybe even ten, I would have thought this a really good idea. My instinct now is that its time has passed. While conservative Catholics hold their breaths about the upcoming next session of the Synod on Synodality, there's sort of a general sense of marking time here as well, and indeed, an uncomfortable one. The current Papacy has is very near its end, everyone knows this, but it puts out a lot of material that's of a highly substantive, and often controversial, nature. Much of this is going to have to be dealt with after this Papcy concludes. Both the volume and speed at which things are occurring may reflect this, as that knowledge operates against the clock, but it might also be a reason to slow down at the Vatican level, or even put a bit of a time-out on things.
Footnotes:
1. Indeed, I was at Confession recently on an average Saturday and noted that as I was there a young woman with her two children were waiting in front of me, with both children saying Rosaries and the mother wearing a chapel veil. Her mother came in and also was wearing one, and a stunning young woman of maybe 20 came in also wearing one. Every woman, and most of them were young, were attired in that fashion.
It's a minor example, but very notable. This is becoming common.
