On Experiential Idolatry

Something's been bothering me lately, and usually when that happens I think about it for a while and then I decide to write about it. I want to do three things here. I want to present an anecdotal situation, analyze both parts of it, and then evaluate based on what I'm observing.

Here's a metaphorical situation which I've encountered before, but it's been told a few different ways to me so I'm not thinking of any particular person. For example, there is a male person who is going to a retreat. On this retreat, there is a lot of talk about religious vocation. During the adoration session, this person feels inspired by some means to want to become a priest. He feels affirmed in this call when he prays and talks to his adviser (person in charge of the retreat) and it feels right for him, so he goes and pursues seminary work.

Of course, this may sound like a familiar situation, and one which many people favor. Some may ask, oh Aristocrates, why does this bother you so much? What could you possibly be thinking? To analyze this situation, I want to look at two parts of what is going on. The first part of the situation is that God gives grace through prayer, conversation, service, and many other means. To see God's grace is a wonderful thing, and when proper discernment is done about God's grace being present, rejoicing in God's grace is good. Of course, there are situations where the community will say God's grace is present when it violates the supreme law of love, and that's where discernment is needed. But this isn't what I want to talk about.

The problem with this scenario is the equation made between seeing grace, having a feeling, and then equating it to God's will to make a particular choice (in this case for the man to become a priest.) Grace can be experienced in many different ways, and this grace can cause us to have particular feelings. Happy or sad feelings because grace can also lead us to look at the hard parts of ourselves and where we need conversion. However, when grace causes us to think about negating free choice, or thinking that God's love will only come (or will mostly come) if a person makes a particular choice, then this equation must be questioned.

I want to name this phenomenon experiential idolatry using the philosophical definition of idol given by Jean-Luc Marion. Simply put, the idol is anything which saturates our image of God in one particular phenomenon (thing, concept, etc.) In the example above, the retreat experience is placing his image of God in the particular calling of becoming a priest, which hinders his decision making ability. Grace should influence our decisions, but just because one has a feeling of something in response to a particular experience doesn't mean that God loves us more if we make that choice. Also, we have to be honest and admit when we are making choices for ourselves.

For the man above, there are many reasons he might consider being a priest. Some people like service, some people like Church, and others like ontological assimilation. None of these things are necessarily God's will. The danger in choosing a particular vocation and thinking it's God's will and instilling this belief in others is that we can believe that God doesn't love people as much if they don't follow their particular vocation. To limit God in this way is a serious issue because it contributes to idolatry and draws worship away from an infinite God of infinite possibilities.

The solution for this ministerial problem is simple. Help people evaluate their choices honestly, help people think about what's good for them, but take out the language of God's will, and avoid the jump from feeling in experience to necessitating a certain choice. It doesn't matter if we "need" priests in the Catholic Church, to build psychological pressure on people to move toward religious vocation by emphasizing God's will is morally problematic. God's will must equate with love, and this includes not using others. Use of others, also includes promoting experiential idolatry

Why the Media Attacks on the Pope are Justified

Greetings readers,



An issue which is near and dear to my heart has come forth in the past weeks with the recent run of sex scandal revelations in Europe. The pope himself has been implicated as one who helped keep the abuses a secret from secular authorities by authorizing the movement of pedophile priests while he was in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. There have been two main responses to this crisis, one which is to defend the pope at all costs. The other is to attack the Pope without understanding how Church bureaucracy works. This opinion is neither and seeks to approach the manner from a different angle not looking so much at the actions themselves, but looking at the issue of how the Catholic Church is viewed in society. This is an important distinction to make because this affects the people's response to this crisis and does not look particularly at the victims, or give a victims perspective.


The best way to approach this justification is to examine how people who are defending the pope are doing so. People who seek to defend the pope are blaming the media for being on a witchhunt. The media is seen as a force who is trying to show mistakes which the pope made in his handling of the abuse crisis. The mentality exhibited by this group of people is that the pope cannot make a mistake because he is infallible in his decision making. (Note: there are problems with how infallibility is defined by this group as well, as infallibility has an extremely limited definition in Catholic theology, namely the teaching must be about faith and morals, and the teaching must be given ex cathedra (from the chair) explicitly.) If the pope is infallible in this more extreme category, then any perceived mistake is a threat to stability in the Catholic Church.


However, the definition of the Catholic Church in this way focuses on a specific model of ecclesiology (of the Church as Institution) (see Avery Dulles' book Models of the Church). This model of Church is focused on by the media because people in the Catholic Church focus on the pope more now than at any other time in history. The world of Catholicism is moved by the words of the pope, and everyone knows who the pope is. The words of the pope are move available for people to read than ever. This creates some sense of unity because people have the opportunity to read the pope's thoughts on any given topic, and the pope is able to make his opinion known on a grand scale.


In the current age of the Church, however, this creates a culture where dissent is not tolerated as well because everyone can see the pope's opinion. Vocal dissent from any bishop is not encouraged, and is heavily noticed. This occurs because of the perceived threats which many people in the Catholic Church feel toward the Church as a whole. Also, the increased exposure of the pope is an extremely important factor. When people entreat into a defensive stance, people turn toward the perceived center of the Church, in this case the pope and the magisterial teaching (e.g. the central teaching authority, the Vatican). When this happens any perceived attack against the center of the Church, rightly or wrongly, garners a strong reaction to demonize anyone who would say such things against the Church.

The reason the media attacks in this recent sex abuse crisis against the pope are justified for this reason. Because the Church as a whole, in the mainstream opinion, has centered on the pope and many people are willing to front this image of Church to the whole. Because the pope is placed as the center of the Church when anything goes wrong in the Church, the pope is the first person everyone blames. This is justified because people have built up this image of the pope and church and have accepted it as a part of faith. In essence, this crisis of authority is the fault of every person of faith (particularly, but not limited to the Catholic Church.) (Noting also there are dissenters from this view, but however, the people as a whole must take responsibility, because in some way all people are responsible for this crisis because of an unwillingness to point to Church teaching which shows a different direction.) People are at fault because people do not realize that they are the Church and not just the institutions (see Lumen Gentium chapter 2).

What is a possible solution to this crisis of authority? Avery Dulles in his book Models of the Church presents other models with which the Church can identify. Particularly he mentions the Church as communio, sacrament, herald, servant, and community of persons. (from Models of the Church). Each of these models presents a different solution to this problem because each model offers different focal points of the Church. For example, the Church as herald focuses on the proclaimed word of God as the uniting source of the community, while the Church as servant finds its strength in being willing to serve the needs of the world and "embrace the hopes, joys, and fears of real people (Gadium et Spes 1)." With any model, there are weaknesses as Dulles does well in his book, so a good solution to the crisis of authority in the Church is to have a balanced model of Church which takes into accounts the many models of the Church. However, in order to do this, one must take a reading of Vatican II and understand the discontinuity in discourse between what Vatican II imagines and what is lived in Church discourse today.

There is a warning, if more models of the Church are not embraced by the general public, attacks on the pope will continue because he will continue to be the perceived center, and people will be seen as lock-step with the pope. (In this light, bishops must also have their own authority to act in collegiality, to be able to have discussions about matters of discipline to see what is best for the Church.) (e.g. Richard Gaillardetz in his article Can I Disagree with Catholic Teaching highlights the different levels of teaching in the Catholic faith. There are four levels "definitive dogma, definitive (irreformable) doctrine, non-definitive doctrine," (the fourth is the lowest level and this highlights things which are done out of practicality or opinion though I forget the name of the particular level as I write this post.) Collegiality requires that bishops can discuss how certain disciplines affect their people to the universal Church. In the current model of Church which is heavily advocated, there is little collegiality because there can be no open disagreement. To solve this problem, one must realize that the world does not hate the Church as a whole, but in this case, people hate what has happened in the Church, and how it has not lived up to its image as Sacrament, in teaching which is proposed (e.g. teachings on sexuality.) (Side note: Rene Girard and his theory on sacrifice and scapegoating has to be balanced with this, because I do agree the work of Jesus as one which exposes the scapegoating mechanism in all societies, which is a threat to everyone, but this is the subject for another post.

In conclusion, as one examines the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, one must look at what the people as a community have to do with this crisis. Most people have nothing to do with the actual actions of the crisis, however, everyone has a responsibility to forgive, and also can examine how the Church has grown in centralized power recently. People have the ability to use power for the good of love, but also for the power of use, manipulation, and evil. Power in itself is not bad, but in this case, power was used and is still being used to hurt others. However, it is not just the people involved in the crimes who are to blame. By looking at ecclesiology (e.g. the Study of the Church), one can see how the model of Church which is heavily favored has an effect on how people respond to crisis. By favoring an institutional model of Church, people lean toward the center, the pope, for strength. However, in times of crisis, the pope is also the first one to get the blame when something happens, because people see the pope as the Church. Until the dominant model of ecclesiology changes, or better yet, people utilize an image of Church which balances many different models, then this problem will continue to happen in the Catholic Church.
However, this solution gives hope, because when the institution starts to lack credibility, people begin to explore new models, and examine the depth of what the Catholic Church is. This time of trouble can be one of great hope because it will spark creativity and love has the potential to permeate whatever structure exists (which of course in saying all of this, what is also affirmed from this methodology is the need for some form of leadership, because the Church as Institution is still a model, and thus a necessary one for ecclesiology.) And there can be no scapegoats in this model either, because everyone has a role in healing the wounds which are present, and everyone has the potential to be blamed as well. People have unlimited potential, and this potential is what allows humans to love. In love, will people match the example of the founder of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ.

An Introduction to Ritual Studies: My Future Work with FOCUS

Hello readers,

Today's entry is going to be less of a prescription to a problem, and more of a methodological piece of some continuing work that I plan to do which may appear on this blog (or as published writing later in life.) In order to understand this work, a description of ritual studies and a beginning (non-scholarly) plain sense treatise on what I am doing is necessary.

Ritual studies is a science which looks at ritual and its effect on community simply put. This can be done in many ways, usually it is a science which requires observation of a particular event, ritual, etc. and then tries to obtain some sort of knowledge about the effect it has on the people who participate in the ritual. Ritual studies can be done on all sorts of events, rituals, people. My particular focus in ritual studies is going to be to examine the FOCUS conference and look at its effect not only on the mentality which the conference wants to derive to its participants, but also what effect this has on Catholic identity. (simply put who's in and who's out in the minds of the speakers at the FOCUS conference.) Also examining is this effect truly consistent with what is Catholic based on what is handed down via the tradition.

In order to do this ritual study, I will need to take note of the order which events happen, and the particular things which stand out while doing the ritual. (examples of this include the style of Mass that occurs at the conference, priests vestments at Mass) but also at the event (meaning the conference itself) which includes the attitudes of the speakers, the topics chosen by the speakers at the conference, etc. These two things together build attitudes about many different topics including ecclesiology (the study of the Church, and what it means to be a Church), ethics (interesting in what ethics the speakers speak about as well), and the human person (is the human person essentially good or bad based on what the speakers talk about mostly, though the ritual norms can teach about anthropology (the study of the human person) as well.)

It is important to note the presuppositions which occur through the speakers at the conference and any common themes they have in their speeches (even if they are on unrelated topics.) For example, if a speaker tells you to be afraid of the world in talking about relativism (the moral theory that morals are subjective to each person, namely there is no objective truth), then later another speaker tells you to be afraid of the world while talking about relationships, this is a common theme which tells the interpreter something about how the leaders of the conference want to influence the attendees.

On the summary, this is the basics of what my work in this area will be. The idea of ritual itself makes this work more complicated because ritual itself is inherently polyvalent and the symbols have their deepest meaning only when one is a part of the community. My own presuppositions complicate this work as well because I'm not simply writing whatever I do as a favorable treatise on FOCUS, rather my own presuppositions want to critique what happens at this conference. This in turn, will affect how I interpret the data, there is no avoiding this, but I will provide copious notes and copies of programs to show from where my tendencies to see certain parallels come. (The postmodern problem discusses this at great length, which I will avoid for sake of space, though this problem will come up in future writings, as this is a presupposition of my thinking.)

Again, anything substantive on this topic which I write is a long ways away but I do want to show people where my mind is coming from as I write or talk about this specific topic. I understand methodology can be a bit boring, (I also have struggles in reading methodology pieces) but it's important in this case to know the method both for people who personally interact with me on this topic and for those who may be interested in reading the ritual studies work which comes forth later.

I welcome comments and questions for ideas which can be explored in ritual studies. Thank you all for your time.

Aristocrates