Latin Rite: Dumb as Fuck

On the Sinfulness of Circumcision

Joshua at the Western Confucian linked to an essay by the Restrained Radical regarding the practice of circumcision and the sinfulness thereof a subject of which I, as a student of things Judaic, found to be somewhat wide of the mark with regards to the proper teaching of the Church:

His main source is a proclamation from Pope Eugene IV (1441) (Note the lack of "Pope St. Eugene". Not to impugn his authority, but perhaps his spiritual insight and theological depth).

and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.

OK, a few things:

"placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally"

This part is actually pretty good. No Christian, whether Jew or Greek is bound to the Mosaic law, and the following of Mosaic observances is, of itself, not availing to salvation. However, there are a great many things that fall into that category. Use of sacramentals, private devotions, extra and para-liturgical prayer, etc., anyone who engaged in any of these in replacement of Christ and the sacraments, or in the belief that these are of themselves insufficient or unavailing, has committed a grave fault indeed.

However context here is crucial, and there have been, and were at the time of this decree, breakaway movements that asserted that observance of the Mosaic law, including circumcision, as well as communion under both species, observance of Saturday Sabbath rather than Sunday, or were necessary for salvation.

All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors

This language is clearly aimed at groups purporting to be within the Church, as it is nothing but a tautological statement with relation to Jews. I might also add that I know Jewish converts who "keep kosher" not out of obligation, but as a private devotion, out of love, rather than fear, and such pure acts are neither reprimanded nor reprobated by the Church today as they are not being performed out of a misguided theology.

Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.

OK, here it gets really clear that this decree is in response to schismatic group rather than Jews. I would quibble with the "glory in the name of Christian before or after baptism, as there is no such thing as an unbaptized Christian. I would also add that the Pope has no authority to command living non-Christians, devils or evil spirits of non-Christians yes. He also ignores the medical reasons that were known even at the time (See Herodotus). As for any devotional aspects, this is problematic as it runs up against the injunctions against mutilation, and is clearly superseded by Baptism anyway. But as the practice may in places both have a social aspect not present in Europe (either in the Middle Ages or Today: Witness Christopher Hitchens' disgusting perorations on circumcision) which may well be said for other practices insofar as they are not (within reason) intrinsically physically harmful such as tattooing, piercing, branding, or scarification, and, particularly in the case of infants, and pose little risk of functional injury or impairment (much less than tattooing in fact!), I do not think that the reprobation of Eugene IV applies in the context of where circumcision is performed today.

The main Reasons Being:

(1) The child is a practicing Jew

(2) Medical considerations

(3) General Social Norms

Remember God instituted circumcision among the Jews. God is incapable or instituting an intrinsically immoral institute. It all hangs on why the circumcision is taking place.

Quo Vado?

On the New Liturgical Movement Blog, Fr. Anthony Symondson S.J. stated as follows with regard to the Anglican Use liturgy in the Roman Rite

I understand the aesthetic and historical appeal for many American Anglicans for Cranmerian English and I love the Anglophile feeling in the best Episcopalian churches. When I saw some magnificent examples last year I felt completely at home in a national sense, not least because many of the late-c19 and early-c20 churches were far better than ours of the same period. But, wonderful as these nuns are (and I can say the same for a host of other Anglican nuns who are inspiring religious - in the past some of the holiest I have been privileged to know in a long life have been among them), I do not believe that the riches of the Western liturgical tradition can be surpassed.

But, I would ask the good Father, cleansed of defective theology (would that the same could be said of the current English form of the OF), how is the Anglican use not a part of the Western liturgical tradition? Particularly if we view it in the context of the rites of York and Salisbury by which it is heavily influenced. It certainly seems far more "organic" in terms of its development than does the current OF. "I do not believe that the riches of the Western liturgical tradition can be surpassed" Help me here because I am sorely tempted to swim the Bosphorus. What exactly does the Western Liturgical Tradition excel in? Once upon a time one could make the argument that the Western Liturgy, calendar, and Devotions were theologically more focused on the Incarnation, while Antioch was more focused on the Trinity and Theophanic events. Scholars such as Stanley Jaki have written that this incarnational focus of Western Orthopraxis contributed to the development of natural science in the West. But today Eastern practices are described by all and sundry as more incarnational than the West, the tradition of which has been described to me, by Catholic priests of both West and East as:

(1) In the West liturgy is primarily didactic (this is why we have no chant or sung mass as chant is alien to the Western Tradition. It is also why we do not use incense or art in our spaces, whereas the east is holistic and organoleptic in its approach to liturgy. In Western tradition the liturgy is just an annotated lesson or lecture, involvement of senses other than hearing would be a distraction at best, stumbling block or occasion of sin at worst. So if you are deaf, or very young, or mentally impaired you just have to hope for infused graces. So those actually hadicapped are denied, and those of education, intelligence, and discernment are denied. In the West everything is reduced down to teh same lowest-common denominator steaming pile of Christianity-lite.

(2) The East preserves the Catechumens/Faithful distinction in the liturgy, thereby expressing the supreme mystogogical reality of the sacred presence. In the Western tradition the orthographic and pragmatic focus of the liturgy is on the assembly primarily, the readings secondarily, and the Eucharist as a tertiary afterthought. It is the Western tradition (so I have been told by westerners, and so my eyes have seen in the Mass) that Christ is substantially, equally, and indistinguishably present in the Word, Host, and Assembly, and there is no hierarchy of realities, only manifestation of Christ most perfectly in the niceness of the faithful, most practically in the readings, and only symbolically/incidentally in the Eucharist; A religion of works, and pretty lame works at that.

(3) In the East, the architecture expresses theological realities, the Western tradition is that anything other than the readings, Eucharist, and general bonhomie of the assembly (in ascending order of importance) are externals and devoid of theological significance, and this is the Western Tradition. (I'll never forget what happeed to te parish church were I grew up. I retunred after 10 years to find that the old high alatar and tabernacle had been torn out. The Book of the Gospels was placed on the central axis in front of the Crucifix, while the Blessed Sacrament had been shunted to the far side of the sancutary in a stone pillar (what does this arrangement tell us theologically? And how is this theology normative to teh Western Tradition. Well, after 40 years, its tradition now!)

(4) The liturgies of Antioch and Alexandria, and even India are filed with rich theological content and quotes from the Fathers, the current English liturgy deals with most things briefly, and obliquely, with all the profundity, nuance, and complexity of an American news talk show. The tradition of the West is not simplicite, but rather simplesse, or so I am told, and so I have seen.

Most Easterners I know go doxing on Sunday if there is no Eastern church nearby. The idea of going to a Roman church seems utterly pointess to them beyond a "well its the same Christ in the Eucharist, and I just have to keep telling myself that", and very thought of taking an Orthodox friend to a Roman church fills me with terror and deep shame. Indeed, taking anyone to the ongoing and unremitting horror I have witnessed, and witness every time, every single time I stray beyond my "safety zones" like St. George in Aurora or John Cantius in Chicago. And I am not just nitpicking "the Bishop is not supposed to wear a mozetta blah, blah, blah...", but words, actions, and symbols that declare to the world in ways both great and small "I tell you I do not know the man!" and "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?!!"

Western Christians claimed that their Mass was their Church's most precious posession. They lied. They tossed it overboard with alacrity in an act of vandalism unheard of since the Iconoclast heresy of late antiquity, and far worse in both scope and theological extent.

People offhandedly say "the Western tradition is just as beautiful and rich as the East in its proper form", but when pressed for specifics they fall silent. Shawn once said on a Byzantine site "there is nothing to be gained arguing which is better East or West" to which the reply was, without irony, "spoken like someone who knows he is on the losing side". A Byzantine priest once said to me "the West also has a lot to offer. It has its own gifts" when asked what exactly those "gifts" are he gave examples like Catholics United for the Faith, nice people doing nice things because its nice to be nice, zero theological content, because he honestly could think of no "spiritual gift" of the western church in a true sense, other than being "nice" busybodies. Sometimes people say, "these things you say of the East, they are our tradition too, we just forgot it" but then that begs the question, "how could we have forgotten it if we ever believed it, and why did they preserve it and we did not"? How is Western Christianity not a sort of deposit of low-grade apostolic ore, a kind of "proto-Protestantism"? As one Eastern Catholic theologian in a chat room dismissed us once, "Protestantism is simply the natural outgrowth of the fragmentary and impoverished orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the West. Ultimately they are indistinguishable to Easterners, as the faith of the East OTOH is apostolic and patristic". Problem is, if this is true, I have an epistemological problem impeding me from switching. In short, if I cannot trust Peter today, can I trust Andrew tomorrow? And if I cannot trust the words of Christ "Tu est Petrus..." then I need to find a better reason for getting out of bed in the morning, much less going to church.

Any answers Fr. Symondson SJ? Anyone?

"Sound of crickets chirping"

Yeah, I figured as much

Risisble Happenings

For the past four months, the US stock markets have been going up, up, and up, even as economic news goes down, down, down. "We are forward looking" they say, and "losses were bad, but they beat expectations!"
Sad, yet joyful truth is, the baby boomers, that generation that destroyed everything it touched, is going into all-out saving mode. They are not returning to the malls, and they are tossing their credit cards.
Its over. The current recovery is nothing more than an illusion created by artificial liquidity, like a junkie shot full of his drug, feeling like he is not addicted. I give the USA 3 more months, tops, before it starts jones'n something fierce.

Discussions on Other Blogs

While visiting Joshua's The Western Confucian, I came accross this most singular comment regarding the policy recommendations of Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute as regards the wisdom of a general withdrawal of US military forces from thir overseas garrisons, and adopting a more defensive, rather than hegenemonic posture. The commenter's objections to Mr. Bandow were:
Mr. Bandow - surprisingly for a fellow at the CATO Institute - seems to be oblivious to the function that the US Military plays as a de facto world police force, in ensuring viable and relatively safe international trade lanes.

While there are still some archaic deployments of US Forces (particularly in Europe), the vast majority are involved in a variety of liaison, peacekeeping, training, and humanitarian operations worldwide.

I consider myself a small L libertarian, but split with the party long ago, over their refusal to recognize the reality that in todays shrinking world, we must have forces positioned to interdict threats before the come to our shores. And given the abject failure that is the United Nations, only America stands willing spend the treasure and lives to maintain the peace for international trade.

Pulling back our military into "Fortess America" is only realistic if we are to retool our society to be completely self reliant for manufacturing and agriculture.

To which I, your obtuse and insensible host oh my bothers and only friends, replied:
Chalmers Johnson demolished this assertion of pretty handily in his Tragedia trilogy, likening the assertion that it is the US military presence that results in the stable trade environment of the Pacific to a man living in an apartment in NYC spreading elephant repellent around the apartment and claiming it works as there are no elephants in his apartment.
The modern USN is a strike force as it is too small to function as a convoy protection force. As such it has only limited ability to protect "sea lanes". The unanswered question of course is always "from whom?". The major powers, having nuclear weapons, are not going to get in a naval battle, the lesser powers are not going to engage in more than local skirmishes as the disparity between them and the major powers is too great, and state navies are too inflexible to deal effectively with piracy, which is a nuisance to shipping, not an existential threat.

"the vast majority are involved in a variety of liaison, peacekeeping, training, and humanitarian operations worldwide"
How nice, but this is not the mission they are equipped or trained for. BTW, where were they when Americans needed them in New York on 9/11 or New Orleans in Katrina? Oh yeah! They were busy defending the rest of the world.
"over their refusal to recognize the reality that in todays shrinking world, we must have forces positioned to interdict threats before the come to our shores. And given the abject failure that is the United Nations, only America stands willing spend the treasure and lives to maintain the peace for international trade."
Do not taunt us with imaginary Hobgoblins, do tell what these threats that if we do not confront them "over there" will come "over here", and disrupt international trade. C'thulu perhaps? A containment strategy for the Great Old Ones is in order! Ia! Iä!
The vague threat is a favorite tool of tyrants and profiteers trying to milk the commons for their liberty, treasure, and lives.

To my pleasure and edification he replied to me:
TimH: "Do not taunt us with imaginary Hobgoblins, do tell what these threats that if we do not confront them "over there" will come "over here", and disrupt international trade. C'thulu perhaps? A containment strategy for the Great Old Ones is in order!"

Never hurts to keep a few protecting enchanted charms around.

Mine is a .50 Caliber Barrett 82A1 rifle, in the hands of a well trained Marine.

But I do agree with you that the US Military is not- and should not - be involved in Humanitarian missions. I would far rather that if we are going to do such things, we create a para military organization, not unlike the Coast Guard, that could deal with such things - both internally and externally.

To which I replied:
Not too bad of an idea at all, but to pay for it you would still have to drastically downsize the military juggernaut.
"Never hurts to keep a few protecting enchanted charms around.
Mine is a .50 Caliber Barrett 82A1 rifle, in the hands of a well trained Marine."

That is one protective charm, but there are other, more powerful ones as well. Namely, a people jealous of their liberty, moderate in appetite, pious in belief, in need of few laws as as their civic virtue suffices to operate common affairs, with a fierce spirit of self-reliance and self-protection, who cannot be cowed or bought by tyrants and overlords, foreign or domestic. Without this, the Marine will eventually come to despise his own countrymen, seeing them as effete and unworthy of his sacrifices (this trend is already underway within the US military), and with it, the Marine is little more than a full-time version of his own countrymen!
War is fought on the physical, tactical, strategic, logistic/economic, and moral/psychological levels, in that order, and a higher level always trumps a lower one. The current disposition of the US military, a 2nd generation military, pretending to be 3rd generation, trying to fight 4th generation opponents, inverts this, and gives our enemies an insurmountable advantage in modern warfare.

Ruminations

It would seem that I am running rather low on inspiration today. I could hold forth on history, or current events, or my problems, or I could just link to somebody else's work.
As it is,
I would like to speak of my earliest political memory. I was 4, and the Watergate scandal was in full swing here in the US. as a child, I found the name most amusing; how could a gate be made of water? I imagined a doorway guarded by a cascading waterfall shut off to allow passage to those able to enter. In no small wise was the childish conception correct. The Emperor Nixon, his sycophants, and the Washington establishment had by that time, so enmeshed their thinking on the concept that the executive is the physical embodiment of the law, and therefore, no act on the part of the executive can be unlawful, as the acts of the executive are the ultimate definition of the law in practice. And despite the pious displays of furor and mock disgust on the part of the Emperor's political enemies, and many of the commons, the American people were by this time so enervated, so bereft of the moral rectitude of their forefathers, that even in their efforts to thwart tyranny, they abetted it, in the formulation of the War Powers Act; Perhaps the most disingenuous piece of legislation formed up until the Patriot Act. This mendacious law, formulated by men either wholly bereft of common sense, or of human decency, purports to constrain the executive by giving him full license and authority to commit the military of the US to any conflict he sees fit, where he sees fit, as he sees fit, and must simply apply to congress for approval and extension of the adventure within 90 days of its instigation. It is well known that one never attacks a king when he is in the field, and so at all times since the law has been used as a cynical tool of the executive branch to distract the media, discipline the congress, and control the people through the prosecution of elective military adventure. The failed 2-party system does nothing to correct this behavior, ans neither party wishes to revoke the powers or privileges of the executive, desirous as they are for the power of that office themselves, they in turn wish to ever expand and aggrandize its perogatives.
"and these false speeches, having seized the acropolis of the young man's soul, will make him prone to extremes of passion, eventually placing him under the tyranny of his most powerful desires"

Substance or Accident?

Today US and Asian stock markets fell and wavered in fear before the meeting of the US Federal Reserve, making clear the anxiety of the markets regarding a US rate hike. The question as it appears to me though is, did the fear and retrenchment accidentally send a message to the Fed, or was the fear and retrenchment the message itself? Standing from the outside, the substance and accident of the phenomenon cannot be readily differentiated.