St. Sylvester—New Year’s Eve Party

December 31 2019 to January 1, 2020

8 pm to 1 am

Dance in the New Year. Eat, Drink, and Make Merry.   The Best Swing, Waltz, & Other Ballroom Music.

Bring all your own food and drink and give us a free will offering for the hall rental and the music.

St. John Paul II Maronite Catholic Church                                                                                at the Immaculate Conception, 199 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY
                                                                                     

The Roman Forum,11 Carmine St., Apt. 2C,New York, New York 10014

For questions, e-mail: drjcrao@aol.com

The Idol of our Age: How the Religion of Humanity subverts Christianity

by Daniel J. Mahoney

Encounter Books; New York and London 2018

The Antichrist!  – how often his specter had haunted artists, philosophers and others “spiritually perceptive” since the consolidation of the modern world! It seems a widely shared perception that he cannot be far from an era of religious collapse and ideological fraud. In more recent years, the radical break with Christian morality of the Western establishment, coupled with the growing acquiescence of the Christian churches in their own liquidation, has made the issue more topical than ever. Chilton Williamson, reviewing the recent “religious” service in the Washington cathedral, commemorating John McCain and castigating President Trump, declared that the only god of the American establishment is themselves. Yet the self-understanding of said establishment is still that of a benevolent universal ruler, dispensing prosperity and liberation throughout the world.

Prof. Daniel Mahoney summarizes the findings of thinkers who have confronted one aspect or other of this transition from Christianity to a humanistic cult or better stated,  the merger of the two. Professor Mahoney is well acquainted with subject matter – he recently written an introduction for a new translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s diaries – written after he came to the West in the 1970’s. Prof. Mahoney has assembled a set of witnesses, some well-known, others less so, some stern prophets of disaster, others enthusiastic heralds of a coming transformation of the world. The common theme is the dawning of a new age and a new religion where man alone is god.

Prof. Mahoney draws on the insights of Aurel Kolnai to frame the discussion.  Kolnai wrote of the negative nature of humanism and of  its absolute incompatibility with Christianity, of the “primordial contrast” between humanitarian and Christian morality. And he wrote these thoughts in an essay published in 1944, when the new regime was, by  its own estimation then and now, on the verge of celebrating its greatest triumph. Prof. Mahoney helpfully reprints that essay in this book.

Orestes Brownson is perhaps unfamiliar in this context, but he personally lived out an early version of the humanist ethics in an early predecessor of a “hippy” commune! August Comte, in the same era, also describes the possibility of creating a humanist society, but writes as an avid advocate of it. He is fascinating because his system explicitly acknowledges “humanism” as a substitute religion.

A high point of this book- or of any discussion of these matters – is Vladimir Soloviev’s incomparable A Short Tale of the Antichrist, an allegory of the advent of a humanitarian Antichrist. Soloviev,  the “Russian Newman,” strove to overcome the division between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. His Antichrist is a mild bringer of terrestrial ease and happiness. He is able to seduce most of the Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic Christians by offering them, in exchange for submission to the world and to him, the secular goods they secretly desire. Soloviev’s tale builds toward a dramatic, appropriately apocalyptic climax.  A Short Tale of the Antichrist is a part of Soloviev’s Three Conversations which is also remarkable for a parable justifying war (and, we might add, capital punishment) both of which remain anathema to the modern humanist ethos.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is cited mainly for his criticism of Tolstoy – in his day, at least in some respects, a humanist hero for his advocacy of nonviolence, the return to the land his disdain for traditional Christianity.

Prof. Mahoney now turns from the past to consideration of the present. For is not the regime of the American and Western European establishment the preeminent modern manifestation of modern humanism? And isn’t Pope Francis the exemplar of such humanism masquerading in pseudo- religious trappings?

“As we have noted, the present pontiff, no Antichrist to be sure, is half-humanitarian” Prof. Mahoney assures us. (surely a historic low point in papal apologetics!) But hasn’t our author squarely raised the issue himself  by juxtaposing in this book Soloviev’s vision of an Antichrist of mercy with a discussion of Bergoglio, the “Pope of mercy?” And, in all honesty, isn’t what Mahoney says about this topic the real interest of this book?

Prof. Mahoney compiles a catalogue (or is it an indictment?) of Pope Francis’s “humanitarian ” statements and actions. The pope and his acolytes  “sow confusion among the faithful and give into the pressures of the secular world.” Francis’s “discussion” of marriage is “marred” by a tendency to redefine Christian family life in terms of “values” that the Church presents to the world.  The Church’s teaching is presented as an “ideal” as to which most people “will fall short.”  The pope sometimes confuses Christian charity with “secular humanism.”  Prof.  Mahoney devotes more space, it must be admitted, to critiquing the pope’s attacks on capitalism, technology and America. He is disturbed by the pope’s affinity for socialist and despotic regimes. Here our author reveals his “neoconservative” roots.

Regrettably, in the case of Roman Catholics, academics and especially Roman Catholic academics,  difficulties arise when dealing with those currently holding ecclesiastical, political, and economic power. The tone grows “nuanced,” the criticism is “balanced,” the prophetic voice is muted. Accordingly, Prof.  Mahoney speaks of the “admirable Christian witness” of Bergoglio. One allegedly must be “moved by the poetic theologizing about the created order that informs the first parts of Laudato Si.”  Francis is a “poet and theologian of charity.” Much of Amoris Laetitia is “beautiful,” “luminous,” “insightful and lyrical.”

Kolnai and Soloviev affirm that the humanitarian temptation is inherent in the modern world and, though perhaps adopting a Christian mask,  remains essentially  incompatible with Christianity. Yet in the case of the bishop of Rome, Prof Mahoney creates separate lists of  “good” and  “bad” statements and seeks to excuse the latter,  suggesting Pope Francis is “confused”;  that the remarkable resemblance of his thought to secular humanism is “unintentional.” Is this relatively inconclusive  assessment of Pope Francis, in a sense, a test case of Prof. Mahoney’s critique of “the religion of humanity” as applied to actual recent developments? If so, one is tempted to ask, as in the case of so many other products of conservative thought: what was all the fuss about ?

We can say much the same of Mahoney’s remarkably mild conclusions regarding  the thought of Jurgen Habermas. If Pope Francis is the chaplain of the Western humanistic establishment, Habermas is its court-philosopher. Prof. Mahoney critiques Habermas’s apolitical “emancipatory cosmopolitanism” – yet he alleges this to be counterbalanced by Habermas’s “fundamental decency,” lauds Habermas as a man “of peace and reason” and applauds his praise of Jewish thinkers.

I have reservations about Mahoney’s judgment in other respects as well. He speaks of the American “experiment” and its  “proposition” that “all men are created equal.” He writes warmly of Churchill, Adenauer and especially Charles de Gaulle – yet wasn’t the current reign of modernity in Western Europe established under them? Pope Benedict is a special favorite of Prof. Mahoney; yet didn’t the  “pope emeritus” in his address to the German Bundestag (much admired by Prof. Mahoney) studiously avoid any reference to Christ? And hasn’t Pope Benedict spoken of the beneficial effects of the Enlightenment on Western Christianity? Also muffling the impact of Prof. Mahoney’s book is his reliance on a repetitive, academic diction in which adjectives such as “rich,” “ample “and “capacious” constantly recur.

A year or more has passed since the publication of this book.  In that time, Pope Francis has carried the fusion between Christianity and the contemporary “humanitarian”  ethos to unheard-of lengths.

Starting in Abu Dhabi, Francis  has launched an ideological and educational initiative couched in entirely humanistic and syncretistic terminology. In the “Amazonian” synod (and in additional interviews with his old dialogue partner Scalfari) the Pope has moved still further away from previous understandings of Christianity ( or at least those prevailing officially in the Roman Catholic Church). This new “Amazonian” faith seems to reduce Christianity to a mere restatement of the ideological norms of the Western European establishment – with Latin American liberation theology thrown in. The tension Prof. Mahoney discerns between Pope Francis’s “humanitarianism“ and his Christianity seems to have been resolved entirely in favor of the former.

Sandro Magister has analyzed recent papal initiatives, also turning to Soloviev’s parable of the Antichrist. 1) Anything but an extremist, Magister is nevertheless compelled to acknowledge traces of the Antichrist in Bergoglio’s papacy. “The novelty of the initiative of Francis consists precisely in the fact that it is the first time a pope has claimed on his own and put himself at the helm of such a radically secularized global educational pact. because in reality a ‘new humanism’ without Christ is not an original, but a constant in the thought of the West of the last two centuries.” And Magister cites extensive passages of a chapter of a book  – also referenced by Prof. Mahoney – in which the late Cardinal Giacomo Biffi “took up the account  of the Antichrist written in 1900 by the Russian theologian and philosopher (Soloviev) and applied it to the Church of today.” And in his wonderfully “brief and blunt” article “The Amazon Synod is a Sign of the Times”  2) Douglas Farrow, referring to the recent synod,  states:

“The kairos, the culture of encounter, being lauded in the Pan-Amazon Synod is a Bergoglian kairos and culture. The church “called to be ever more synodal,” to be “made flesh” and “incarnated” in existing cultures, is a Bergoglian church. And this church, not to put too fine a point on it, is not the Catholic Church. It is a false church. It is a self-divinizing church. It is an antichristic church, a substitute for the Word-made-flesh to whom the Catholic Church actually belongs and to whom, as Cardinal Müller insists, it must always give witness if it means to be the Church.”

We can only emphatically agree that although we may not yet be at the point of encountering  the personal Antichrist,  today’s Church and society are most definitely “antichristic.”  Although I do not agree with some of his conclusions,  nevertheless Prof. Mahoney has done us a service by opening more people’s eyes to the gravity of this crisis.

1. “Everyone to the School of the Antichrist: but One Cardinal Rebels”http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2019/09/19/everyone-to-the-school-of-the-antichrist-but-one-cardinal-rebels/
2. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/10/the-amazon-synod-is-a-sign-of-the-times

I recently had to confront this monumental decision: should I renew the “Catholic Herald – US edition”? For that magazine was launched just about a year ago. It’s now time to review how the US edition has fared since then.

The objective was alluring and ambitious:  to create a magazine providing intellectual leadership for American conservative Catholics.  In the US, it was a role last completely filled by Triumph magazine  – up to 1975, that is! The Herald’s new US edition could build on the success and visibility of the UK parent,  in which Damian Thompson had instilled new bite and focus.

I myself had doubts early on about this venture given the anti-Traditionalist animus of at least one prospective editor – who had even railed against the above- mentioned Triumph, shut down so many years before. But the US edition was launched with a splash – an oversubscribed gathering in New York plus, I heard, even an “afterparty.” It was a welcome display of panache and flair so rare in the Catholic conservative world. A wide variety of conservative greats were invited on board as potential writers.

Yet things almost immediately went south. One of the would-be contributors  – a certain Dawn Goldstein – immediately unleashed a vicious assault on the publication. Members of the Catholic Herald team fought back  – but then joined her in blasting the alleged “anti- Semitism” of one of their own recently published writers – Taki, one of the great supporters of conservatism. And within months both the US and UK editors were out the door. It seems the conservative  “big tent” was not so capacious after all. It is just one further proof of the inherent impossibility of the  “conservative Catholic” compromise – made starkly visible in the crisis created by the current Pope.

What survives is a decent publication offering a pleasant, non-challenging  version of “cultural conservativism” –  nice articles on culture, church history, spirituality and new books combined with summary coverage of current events.   Tough investigative journalism and a probing political, historical and theological analysis of the deviations of the papacy and local hierarchies are not, however, part of the scene. There is nothing like the recent articles in First Things on the “Amazonian” synod or the Papal Foundation. Or  Ed Condon’s recent journalism in the CNA on the Vatican’s financial scandals. True, hot topics are not necessarily avoided or swept under the rug – the Catholic Herald is not yet like the Catholic News Service or Catholic New York. Yet all too often even a candid, critical discussion of an issue ends in wishful thinking or credulity. 

So, for example, referring to the latest London real estate shenanigans of the Vatican:
“The controversy is likely to be a source of sadness for Pope Francis who was elected in 2013 with a mandate to reform Vatican finances. He pursued this goal energetically…” (October 25, 2019).
Or, on the Amazonian synod:
“Only a vast creative and relentless campaign of evangelization can hope to reverse this trend (of the de-catholicizing of the Amazon – SC). Will this be unleashed by the Amazon synod? Let’s pray that it
will…. .”  (November 1, 2019)

I find myself therefore still relying for news and analysis regarding all things Catholic on perusing daily six to eight websites – several of which are not in the English language. One of the best of these sources  is,  paradoxically, the ultra-progressive website of the German bishops. All in all, the US edition of the Catholic Herald is pleasant and informative reading  but has failed so far to rise to the challenge of leadership.  In an era of unprecedented crisis in the Church, that is a major failing.  Should I continue to subscribe? For $140, I  do not know…….

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