There is a continuous attraction, beginning with God, going to the world, and ending at last with God, an attraction which returns to the same place where it began as though in a kind of circle. -Marsilio Ficino
No. 1: Ryan from Athanasius Contra Mundum states the obvious: the Song of Songs isn’t about sex! That’s right, people, deal with it:
The reason is that human love as we know it exists only in this world, and as good as it is, is unfulfilling and lame in comparison to divine love. There is no sex in heaven, there is no marriage in heaven. Those things while good in themselves are also mundane when considered in that light, which is why the mystics viewed the human love as a mere beginning, and someone unable to break out of it as someone who could not advance in the spiritual life. West on the other hand would have you believe they are everything. The principle fallacy of such an approach is that marriage exists in the order of nature, primarily for the procreation and education of children, and secondly as a remedy for concupiscence. The husband has spiritual headship of the family because it is ordered to the family (not his) benefit, essentially the husband rules the family to get it to heaven. In heaven however, people do not rule in the order of nature, but in the order of grace, thus women may rule and have authority in heaven. Our Lady is queen of heaven, and rules over every man, except for her divine Son to Whom her will is always united. In heaven husbands and wives have no common life, because life in heaven exists by the order of grace. The two effects to which marriage is ordered no longer exist. A holy woman of a husband who barely makes it into purgatory will rule, while the husband will be at a lower order. Amidst such a reality, one has a difficult time finding the lofty conception of sex and marriage which West (and it would appear) the late Holy Father find.
No. 2: A friend of mine once told me that you know you are really in the soup when you find that the only purpose of your life may be to serve as a cautionary tale to others. Well, this is one of those moments in my life:
That said, as an Eastern Catholic I reject the idea that Trent is truly ecumenical, and hold instead that its decrees espouse Latin (mainly Scholastic) theological theories, which no one outside the Latin Church is required to accept…
[Comment:] Clearly the concept of “cafeteria” Catholicism is not limited to the Latin Rite. I am slowly coming to the view that many of these people are neither Catholic nor Orthodox. They are Protestants dressed in Byzantine vestments. “I will believe whatever I want to believe.”
I don’t want to bore people with that story again, but I am entirely in agreement. I have to say, at least when it concerns Catholics, such talk is more a demonstration of personal boredom than anything, tinged a bit perhaps with intellectual sloth. They see the state of contemporary American Christianity, and particularly the childish gags of Catholic AmChurch, get discouraged, and start to look for real “ancient piety” elsewhere, all the while bringing their modern sensibilities with them. Carl Jung painted a pretty accurate picture of these people when he wrote:
… People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world- all because they cannot get on with themselves… the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come. Therefore, let us fetch it from the four corners of the earth- the more far fetched and bizarre, the better!
Of course, Jung was speaking against the notion of absolute human depravity, and I cannot agree with him in that regard, but I think he is right to criticize the wanderlust that certain “spiritual seekers” have when they approach the traditions and attitudes that are right in front of them. The problem is not the “church you’re in”. The problem is you.
Okay, this was a terrible film, but the music was really good. If you like Baroque music, I would watch it.
Those interested in this rather unpleasant subject should know that the last castrato was born in 1858, and lived long enough to make a modern recording:
(Yes, that is a man.)
One of the many dirty secrets of Catholic society: if we want you to keep singing like an angel, we will, even if it means we have to maim and deform you. Who do you think hit those high notes in the Papal choir? Women?
Or: Things that happen when clergymen get too enthusiastic
Pope Paul IV when he was a cardinal was in charge of the Roman Inquisition: one of his first acts as a pope was to increase the powers of this institution and the penalties associated with heresy: even some cardinals were charged with heresy and Cardinal Morone was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo as a hidden Lutheran. The pope imposed on the Romans a very austere lifestyle, but allowed his nephew Carlo Carafa to profit from his position to enrich himself and, according to widespread rumours, to behave badly from a moral viewpoint. He forced the Jews of the Papal State to live in two ghettos in Rome and Ancona: he built walls around an area of Rione Sant’Angelo which was subject to floods: the Jews were not allowed to live elsewhere and during the day had to go about wearing a distinctive sign… Pope Paul IV died in August 1559: the Romans reacted to the news by setting fire to the Inquisition palace and by destroying all the coats of arms of the pope: his statue in Campidoglio was beheaded and the head was rolled down the cordonata.
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