The True Ideological Divisions of Catholicism

In light of the raging debate over the Vatican's "crackdown" of the religious sisters of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious), which represents the high majority of women's vowed communities in the U.S., misunderstandings about the political nature of the modern Church have re-emerged. I love writing lists and breakdowns, so here it goes once more. .

As I see it, there are essentially three broad, notable divisions in practicing Catholicism today. It's hard to get a clear read on the exact distribution of how many belong to each group, as many surveys conflate the beliefs of both practicing and non-practicing. This pretty much represents the practicing distribution:

Progressives

This includes the LCWR and its surrogates, groups like Call to Action and elements of Voice of the Faithful. Whether or not activist, these are the Church's change agents: they wish for official Church teaching to be altered on birth control, women's ordination, certainly mandatory celibacy, certain "patriarchal" elements of liturgy, with far more lay involvement in Church governance. To them, abortion is just one among a host of issues and by itself does not take precedence, as there are scores of other social justice concerns, much aligned to secular progressivism.

Traditional

These folks are well-fractured, but hold out that the modernizing Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) was either entirely unnecessary, or simply turned out very badly for the Church. Think Pat Buchanan for starters: They point to the moral turpitude in the pews (e.g. the progressives themselves) and declining numbers of Mass attendance and religious vocations to illustrate the point. Most of the hierarchy has been either inept in this struggle, aligned with progressives in thought, or themselves morally corrupt no matter what they call themselves.

They love the traditional "Tridentine" Latin Mass, either viewing it as the exclusive rite of worship, the favored rite, or even close to how the new rite should basically look, sound, and smell. In all, these are people who readily admit they want the Church of the 1950s restored.

Neo-conservative

Often conflated by the press with the aforementioned traditionalists, this is an ecclesiology unto itself. It represents a sort of middle ground, but should not be confused with being "moderate" in terms of dogmatic rigor.

To these folks, the institutional establishment comes first. That is, the authority structure, as is, takes precedence in their minds. So, while Vatican II presented the Church universal with a bumpy ride in the decades out with plenty of progressivist dissent, Pope John Paul II pretty much straightened it all out (with the exception of notable bits of Western Europe).

The Latin Mass can be nice (even very nice) at times, but is surely not exclusive, for that wouldn't be true in thinking with the Church (and its Vatican II reforms). Most Masses today are in the are vernacular (with pretty crummy music, admittedly to some) but really shouldn't change, because that's the status quo, and since the establishment is beyond reproach, we really don't question it.

While we despise liturgical violations (they're against what the bishops say), we still welcome charismatic expressions (that often thrive on liturgical violations) because John Paul II did, since it presumably brought more folks into the institutional fold, and that's what really matters most.

We talk about those we'd love excommunicated, but we won't do it, as that would lessen the reach of the institutional establishment and make it all the more unpopular. Otherwise, the Church is in wonderful shape; we don't see many problems in the institution beyond a few public dissenters. The Church is growing worldwide, more priests are being ordained than in the past several decades in America (though how many imported?). Dissent was largely solved by JPII through his episcopal (bishop) appointments, and the priestly sex abuse problem is mostly a delusionary fiat of a hostile secular press.

So, how do these broad factions interact?

It's all rather counterintuitive, actually. Progressives and traditionalists both see the Roman Catholic Church as being screwed up...in major ways. And some of their lists actually overlap:

BOTH view the Church as being in a state of measurable decline, even worldwide overall, with no end in visible sight. BOTH view the hierarchy as being chock-full of disingenuous and power-hungry elites. BOTH consider sex abuse as still being a huge, largely under-addressed crisis. While there's a "one-strike" policy in the U.S. against priests, bishops are inconsistent in publicizing those who have been credibly accused and when. Bishops themselves are not personally held to account when they are accused of misconduct personally. BOTH admit to there being a somewhat widespread gay subculture throughout seminaries and the priesthood in the West. BOTH see the ineptitude of the hierarchy in addressing these notable hypocrisies.

YET, both have VASTLY OPPOSING solutions to these honest diagnoses. Progressives want "progress" through vast doctrinal changes and revisions. Traditionalists want a revival of bygone discipline through tradition to stave off further damage, or for a complete revival.

Though neocons have a different view: they want to crack down on "dissent," but this is often pitched popularly as liberal detraction from the ecclesial party line on such things as birth control. But other times, it is right wing, traditional dissent, that is, anyone who harshly criticizes the sitting pontiff, who doesn't "think with the Church" and "uphold the Office." Yet, their crackdowns can be notably tepid: for instance, threatening or suggesting withholding the Host from only the most virulent of pro-choice politicians, suggesting sanctions against the very most progressive (and often elite) of Church-affiliated institutions of higher learning (usually over invitations to secular-progressive notables for commencements); this is when most U.S. Catholic universities have long been mainstreamed into society. In the final analysis, it's all about preserving institutional cohesion. and prestige People being excommunicated will only trigger an exodus from this institution on their part and by their supporters, which in turn will serve to weaken the "big tent" that is today's Catholicism, thereby lowering the prestige and influence of the pontifical and episcopal offices. I shit you not, this is truly the cliff's notes synopsis of how they think.

While the outside world is rotting away, corruption inside the Church is not an issue for neocons. We should just celebrate John Paul II (JPII), who "revitalized" the Church, instead, and not really question the Church's establishment authority structure, lest we be "proud."

So WHO are these Catholo-neocons exactly? Think the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, who edited the conservative First Things project; or George Weigel, papal biographer, or Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law Professor, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, most of the cast and producers of EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) and their print outfit, the National Catholic Register. Occasionally this crew will call upon the hierarchy to be more aggressive in dealing with the afore-defined notable "public" doctrinal dissenters, but will stop short of promoting anything that will cause real "division," otherwise known as schism. In reality, many progressive dissenters FLOURISH within modern U.S. and European Catholicism, usually in the lay apparatus of Catholic institutions (oftentimes charities), the LCWR (yes!) which is connected to its own vast expanse of Catholic education and charity, and especially within the broader higher education ivory towers (and not just Jesuit schools). In truth, the whole house may fall if this status quo is disrupted, which is why the neocons hope progressives just shut up or be converted to orthodoxy; otherwise they wish to leave them mostly intact.

Then, there's neocon clericalism, which is defined as over-emphasizing the separateness and apartness of the clergy from the laity, to the point of noting only their "specialness." No doubt, this DOES mean ignoring or minimizing the sometimes notable personal faults of individual priests, including those that interfere with their effective ministering. JPII was big on this (as he was big on restoring institutional cohesion, which indeed WAS coming apart at the seams during the 1970s and threatening schism) as are most neocon laity and hierarchy. A great example is New York Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan: he's OK with Cardinal Bernard Law receiving his prestigious basilica appointment in Rome from JPII AFTER being removed for the horrendous cover-up crisis in the Boston archdiocese. You'll rarely hear a sitting bishop criticize another bishop, sitting or retired, for any reason. Laity who resist criticizing priests "because he's a priest!" are likewise of this mindless mold. The other two groupings almost love excoriating clergy who do not fit the respective bent these folks represent.

Yet, note how Pope Benedict XVI has called for a smaller, more cohesive Church, one without "filth" and dissent that, though reduced in worldly presence, is far more true and meaningful. Many on all sides minimize some of the astounding course-corrections undertaken during his reign, broadly conflating his policies with JPII's in order to serve whatever their talking points may be.

Trads can be found reading The Latin Mass, while progressives usually read Commonweal and National Catholic Reporter.

I don't readily identify with any of these divisions, actually. Though my emphasis herein should demonstrate wherein lies the true problem.

Let this serve as the inaugural theme tune of this blog.

Blog and Author Intro

WHERE BUCKLEY the IIIrd meets HOWARD STERN...

This is about the 1.7 billionth English-language blog about society and religion. But I guarantee you something -- it will go viral. Not because I'm special...now I know so many Xers and especially millennials think that of themselves (the only justification for them having something like two or more blogs each, on top of facebook and twitter), but I know my own flaws and limitations. I don't hide them, either.

People will notice them sooner or later, so why the hell even try?

Let's begin with telling you about my blog: Well, first of all, it's premise for existence: Western civilization -- led by America -- is fast headed down the tubes. No, Obama and Biden professing devotion for gay marriage is not a cause, it's a late after effect of what began probably starting around the time of the great baby-boom, mid-20th century. The victory over Western and Eastern fascism greatly inflated the collective ego of this society, exponentially over the decades through and including the fall of euro-communism.

Then it was home free for the West, or so we thought.

China, the haven of Eastern communism, is due to economically surpass the United States in terms of total output in four years (if Laura Ingraham is to be believed).
Radical Islam is making gargantuan gains stationing openly throughout Europe, east and west. Guess where it's headed next?
The marriage rates and connubial birthrates are dropping like a fart across the board.

America locks up more drug offenders and petty-level criminals than any other Western society with tougher-looking police personnel, yet suffers under more relative substance abuse and violent crime than almost any other advanced country in the West.

Obama has been a train wreck, yes, though the G.O.P. is already pining for yet another, bigger, more spectacular, more costly, and more detrimental war in the middle east: this time, an Iran takeover.
Sounds great, doesn't it? Oh yeah, and pop music sucks today like never, ever before.

The Great Modern Debate is cast within the narrative of progressive-secularists -- who presumably operate with elite, institutional backup -- versus the broadly Reaganite, traditional moral value, free market contingent. Somewhere straddling the sidelines are those libertarians, who frankly often promote libertinism. Unless, of course, you're Ron Paul.

Nevertheless, both of the broad, competing sides are deeply misunderstood, and deeply deficient --with their own sets of problems.

For one, people in America who practice conventional Judeo-Christianity -- particularly white Roman Catholics -- tend toward the more affluent and educationally elite strata. Yet we hear ceaselessly about "cultural and liberal elitism" eroding our simple, core values. And people with those core values being portrayed as toothless simpletons.

We hear about the decline of marriage, mostly from the cultural right. Yet, most divorce happens in bonafide red states, among conservatives. Yes, they have higher marriage rates, thus higher divorce rates. But overall, marriages with children stateside are more likely to break up than cohabiting arrangements between men and women in ultra-progressive Sweden. I mean, wow.  

Both sides profess sacred devotion to the First Amendment. Yet, both sides cherry-pick at its attendant rights -- particularly free speech. That's right: you'll routinely hear more or less orthodox Christians in America moan about certain speech being "offensive," (I'm not even talking salacious or pornographic) even from others like them but with different manners of expression -- all the while castigating liberals for trying to curb religiously-based expression (or viewpoints) from being expressed in the public square. Believe it.

Hypocrisy breeds hypocrisy, my friends, which then breeds contempt.

ABOUT ME: I am a 33 year old, Caucasian man living in a suburb of Providence, RI. That's right, once the northeast's urban renaissance, now literally on the cusp of municipal bankruptcy. Once goes Rogue's City, so then goes the whole state.

In early childhood, I was speech-delayed. A local, higher-end public school system placed me in special education (with a rigorous speech therapy regimen) and wanted to keep me there past my point of age-appropriate progress. My parents objected (half my class being retarded), and threatened legal action.

Representing my cause was then-Sister Arlene Violet, R.S.M. Sister Violet was a practicing attorney (and still is), until she developed political ambitions and clashed with the Vatican over them. She exited the order, and would be elected as state attorney general with a Republican affiliation.

Representing my cause to speak, if you will, may end up as Arlene Violet's biggest professional regret, as my life 28 years later will soon prove. 

My parents started off as lower middle-class, and would steadily rise with the 80s and 90s boom-waves into the entry-level upper-middle class. Neither completed college.

I graduated from the state's last all-male preparatory academy, Bishop Hendricken High School. I went on to graduate from Rhode Island College, one of two four-year state schools, after a two-year stint at Salve Regina University, operated by Ms. Violet's former Sisters of Mercy community.

Hence, I went into journalism, writing at various and overlapping times for each a local weekly, twice weekly, and daily between Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts.

In spring 2005, not long after the pope's election, I was awarded a Robert D. Novak journalism fellowship by the Phillips Foundation, a non-profit group in Washington, D.C, whose namesake owns Regnery Publishing. The purpose of this more-or-less year-long stint was to begin a book-length, publishable manuscript on a non-fiction sociopolitical topic.

Mine was (and remains) the men's rights movements and masculism (more on this later), and I successfully completed my official fellowship in late 2006.

Though a strong, unwritten expectation of the Phillips Foundation is to remain affiliated as sort of a club beyond the non-renewable fellowship period itself, I nonetheless disaffiliated from the organization in 2007. As even more casual observers will note of its web site, it is profoundly ideological, strongly aligned to mainstream G.O.P. causes. In 2007, this very, very much meant it was almost wedded to the Weekly Standard pro-interventionist editorial stances, strongly supporting Bush-Rove foreign policy, by means of many fellows themselves and the broader Eagle Publishing group, including Human Events and Regnery books.

While I am grateful for the early career jumpstart they gave me, such an association became too cumbersome. That, and I had a significant personnel-related difference with them, and also felt censored quite a few times within the program. But life goes on.  

Starting not long before then, one might say, I've encountered waves of stiff opposition, both from institutions and even within my private circle. No doubt, over my form of expression. Some have even used coercive and/or emasculating rhetoric and means to degrade and quash my expression and present freelance-based occupation into "real" 9-5 work "with a schedule and a boss," etc.

And what some of them are now beginning to wake up to.

You see, life comes and goes in distinct cycles: I am now at a similar point I was at this time in 1984, when Arlene Violet came into my life briefly.

However, I now act out her role as my own personal advocate and somewhat a religious militant. And while I am more philosophically orthodox, I share in her much-touted disgust for so much of the institutional Roman Catholic Church in America.

For a practicing Catholic-Christian in this part of the world, this day in age, I'm nonetheless sort of a bad-ass. For men in particular, these Western Christian religious groups here place a primacy (wrongly so) on personal passivity and lack of anger as virtue. I am anything but, and I'm not so certain that a culturally-divorced, objective reading of Gospel scripture quite affirms the 11th Commandment of passivity.

And yes, I am least likely to get along with the priggish, effeminate nancy mama's boy, so self-righteously perched in great quantities in so many of today's pews, and for that matter, church leadership positions. By no means, though, are all active men of faith of such ilk.

Still, I assent to the Church's timeless beliefs, well summed-up for the most part recently by Canadian media personality Michael Coren's Why Catholics Are Right. But that doesn't mean I have to like most of today's American bishops and approve of all day-to-day methods of operation.

While the Church is emphatic over its sexual teachings, the fact remains that in today's technically celibate Latin Rite of Roman Catholicism, at least triple as many priests have homosexual tendencies as does the general male population (something like 30 percent are non-heterosexual). While not even close to a majority of clergy, that still rises somewhere around the levels of ordained male Anglican clergy, as a common ritualistic stiffness and liturgical vestment fashion performances often permeates. Today's bishops seem more accepting than not of this (in spite of predictable implications), perhaps in part because the newer priests are BOTH more likely to be gay, and more likely to be conservative. And just how many newer priest are coming down the pipeline, compared to even thirty years ago?

PHILOSOPHIES: Besides Catholicism, I take a deep interest in the relations between the sexes in America today. In short, it's a disaster.

It's simple for one of more traditional leanings to point straight at feminism, or women's liberation, as the cause. But would that have even been if society wasn't a disaster preceding it? I mean, that's like saying in order to oppose Soviet Stalinism, go back to the decades before the Revolution in 1917. Come on.

This will surely be a main focus of this forum, along with my pithy observations (collected over a decade and a half) of the life and way of existence between men and women. But then there's the hurdle of political correctness to cross:

If Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism, then America is probably more like the Kuwait, Syria or Malaysia. In all, political correctness in the U.S. can be categorized and prioritized as follows:

1)  RACE:

By far, hands down, the most verboten of criticisms or slurs that are tolerated in open society today: this applies primarily to the formerly enslaved Black races, less to but still much to Hispanics, and increasingly to Muslims.

Anti-Semitism, overall, seems to be of a different category, as it is found alive and well on both sides of the socio-political border.

If you're caught using a racial slur, your career is pretty much forever over.

2) HOMOSEXUALITY:

A very high priority protected group. Using anti-gay slurs is beheading-worthy to much of society today. Even criticizing state-sponsored gay rights is verboten in the public square, and will be increasingly so in years to come. c.f., the Commonwealth of Canada.

3) WOMEN AND FEMINISM:

Believe it or not, this is a somewhat distant third, though Amerika is still quite rigid in its view that even white, suburban caucasian women are vaguely patriarchal victims, or conversely, sexual revolution victims: Both Dems and often GOP-ers straddle these two poles.

But as Geraldine Ferraro put it, "it's not OK to be racist, but it is OK to be sexist." Now I'm NOT OK with any sexism, but I strongly believe it cuts both ways along the gender spectrum, from both distinct political angles. Don Imus was fired in 2007 far more over the racial dimension of his ladies' Rutgers U. basketball team comment, than the sexual dimension, though quite deplorable.
Otherwise, Bill Mahar would be receiving food stamps from the Swedish government by now.

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So what's wrong with Rogue's Island these days? Well, here's a little microcosm to look at:

You want socialism in practice? Never mind Brown or even the University of Rhode Island, where no doubt those philosophies abound (as do a large number of private job recruiters). Go instead to Rhode Island College (RIC), my alma mater in Providence. It's as if two-thirds or more of students there are there for the purpose of earmarking their entitled local, municipal or state, union-supported employment: in public schools, as social workers, as law enforcement, even as attorneys. It's the "all in the family" mentality writ large.

Problem is, those municipal jobs are fast disappearing. And so will RIC if it doesn't radically re-tool, and fast.

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My name is Jeff Jackson, and get set for an adventure like no other. I'm late to the blogosphere by about 8 years, but that still would have been a time far premature.