Intercessions

I had a discussion today with my priest, and, he rightly criticized me for being a bit too self-righteous. But we did end up having a decent dialogue about the nature and purpose of intercessions.

I was looking at the Magnificat prayer book (one that I often refer to for intercessions), and found the following:

That government leaders will work to provide a just distribution of the
world's goods, remaining especially mindful of the poor.

I saw this and thought to myself "so, people are supposed to be distributed justly, interesting concept". Now, that thought may sound a bit weird to some, but, with a proper understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, it makes perfect sense.

One of the talks that Fr. Neuhaus gave us was on the idea of wealth. When reading Centissumus Annus by John Paul II, he explicitly (that is, leaves no room for error) states what is the wealth of the world, what its goods are. He states that wealth and goods are not based in material things, but in man. It is not money, or land, or technology that is the basis for our wealth, but ourselves.

Let us take an example that Fr. Neuhaus gave us. Silicon used to be absolutely worthless. It had almost no value at all. It wasn't because it was silicon that it was worthless, but rather because no one saw a purpose for it. Now, someone comes along and thinks "this would be a great thing to use in the construction of microchips". And boom, the value of silicon skyrockets. It's not because someone said "oh, silicon, based on its properties, has a value of x", but it is because someone came along and applied their gift of reason to the object and said "I can make you worth something". This is the value of wealth, man, not object.

This brings the above mentioned intercession into a greater context. Seeing that man is the source of wealth, standards of living, wealth (in the purely materialistic sense) are seen as having an endless opportunity for growth. This is the beauty of Catholic Social Doctrine. It does not say that there is a pie chart which states there is only x amount of wealth in the world, and thus that it is unfair since the rich have 80% of it, but rather the Church says there is no pie chart, but rather infinite access to opportunity.

This is why (and JP II talks about this a lot in Centissimus Annus) it is not right to send money to less developed nations. Money is not going to make them develope. Rather, what they need is access to training to see that the potential for economic prosperity is within themselves thanks to the gift of reason which God has given them. This is the true empowerment of the poor that the Church teaches.

And so, we ought to be weary when intercessory prayers are put within a box, because we must remember that the Church, in her adequate understanding of man, says that man is not constrained by a box, but only by his lack of willingness to use his reason.

-Harrison

On the Nature of Societies

I received a few comments by e-mail on my post on the USCCB. Without divulging what people said to me in private, needless to say I was a bit saddened by the fact that people think that, in this case, the conference is identical with its members. This is not the case, a society, by definition, is fundamentally different from the members which make it up. The society is, if you will, its own person with its own will, rights, and dignity. It is what Maitland calls an "N + 1 Unity". It is a person unto itself which consists of n number of individuals plus itself, with its own distinctive individuality.

To understand this, there is the need to distinguish the idea of what persons are. At the core, a person is someone who is, according to St Thomas, "distinct by reason of dignity". I will not go into the history of the word persona here and now, though I encourage researching it as it is quite fascinating.

Taking this definition of a person, we have 3 categories of persons; natural, fictional, and real.

Natural Persons

Natural Persons are those who, according to Prof. Hittinger (and the entire Christian tradition), possess a unity of rational substance. That is to say, it has a substantial nature which is expressed primarily through reason. This has within itself 3 categories; Man, Angels, and God, God being the most distinct in dignity of Natural Persons because of the infinite nature of His reason.

Fictional Persons

Fictional Persons fall under the nature of the law. Virtually anything can be a fictional person. Essentially, the best way to explain this is through example. Let us take, for example, that Joe leaves his dog Spot everything in his will. Joe has every right to do this and, 10 years after writing his will, passes away. Spot now is a legal entity bearing rights and interest by virtue of law. They thus receive a legal dignity necessary to make them distinct under the eyes of the law so as to legally receive that which has been given to them under the law. This is not something they receive because of their nature, but because of the structure of the law.

Real Persons

Real persons are defined by what they are not; they are not a substantial unity nor are the a fictional creation of the law. This is the realm in which societies fall under. This comes from the Thomistic Tradition in his idea of the unity of order. Thomas states that this unity of order is not absolutely one, but that its unitive actions are fundamentally different from the actions of its parts and visa versa.

Let us take an example. Say, for example, that you have a soccer team. The action of the team is to win the game. This is only something a team can accomplish as a team, as a society of persons. The goal of the society is to win the game. However, this is distinct from the role of the individual members. The role of the goalie is to stop the ball, the defenseman to ensure the ball is away from his side of the field and so on. These are activities that are distinct to the members and do not belong to the whole. It is not the role of the entire society of the team to be a goalie.

And the same goes the other way around. It is not the role of the goalie to win the game. By the very definition of team sports, this is contrary to their purpose. Of course, the goalies goal is to win the game and he will do his part to ensure that the societal person attains its goal.

Let us, then, apply this example to what I was saying yesterday. When I am talking about the USCCB, for example, I am talking about the real person that is that society, I am not talking about its members.

Again going back to the soccer example (and taking the hardcore nature of soccer fans into effect to a certain degree), I may hate Arsenal because they beat Manchester United, but this is not going to mean I am going to hate each individual player on the team. Rather, I am referring my hate towards the real personal entity that is the society of the team Arsenal. (Qualification, I am not actually advocating hate towards any persons, real or natural!).

So, if I am talking about the USCCB , I am not talking about its members, but about the society itself. I am addressing concerns I have with the actions taken by the real person known as the USCCB. These actions are distinctive to the society and not the individual bishops. Now, there are members of the society who will take a role in ensuring that the society itself takes certain actions. I am not going to agree if it is in regards to something such as to what I posted yesterday. However, my criticism does not have anything to do with the particular members, but the unitive whole that is distinct in being and nature from its members. That is what I mean.

I could honestly post a lot more on this, but I won't because this is a very complicated (and interesting!) topic, one in which I would only too happily talk on and on about.

I also encourage checking out material by Russell Hittinger on the subject. He was my main source for this as this was his main focus in his lectures at the Tertio Millennio Seminar.

-Harrison

Monday, July 9th

Hey everyone.

So today was another awesome day (would any day be NOT an awesome day here?).

The morning started off slow. I was really tired. It seemed a lot of walking tires you out and so, even after 8 hours of sleep, I was exhausted when I woke up and REALLY didn't want to get out of bed. But I got up anyways (yes, FJ, be surprised).

Anyways, I skipped breakfast this morning and went straight to class. Today was Prof. Hittinger's last lecture which was really sad because his lectures are outstanding, though, to say the least, quite dense (in a good way, there is a LOT of content). He talked about JP II and Social Doctrine. Essentially what he was arguing was that JP II saw the shift in the world's point of view. Before the war there was a false understanding of the State and Society, and the Church responded to that with her Social Doctrine, hence why every Pope since Leo XIII and onwards have started their pontificate with a Social Encyclical. But JP II didn't do that, he broke the trend. He started off his Pontificate with "Redemptor Hominis" - Redeemer of Man. What JP II saw was a shift in the modern problem. The biggest danger was no longer the State and societies (what Hittinger calls N+1 unities, oh, and by the way, societies are persons).

Anyways, the modern problem was now anthropological, that there was a false understanding of man that came from the enlightenment. He made a great point (one that I know I have held as well as most here) that JP II was a Pope who understood the implications of ideas. They seem abstract but they really do effect things. The Englightenment took up the Creation story from Genesis and stated that what man did to distinguish himself was not something that was given to him a priori, but was something he willed for himself. He willed to be different from the animals, it was not something universal that God gave him and this trickled all the way down to our modern times and so JP II answered that with his definition of man. This is why you can't read JP II without understanding in its fullness the Theology of the Body.

Quick sidenote, Hittinger argued that Humanae Vitae is not first and foremost about contraception, but about whether or not man has dominion over his own body. Really interesting stuff. Anyways, I talked to Hittinger after class and we were discussing a few things and he told me he had a zip drive with a couple of .PDFs on it. One is his book that is being published in September, the other is an article he published. I am still going to buy the book when it is released, but he said these 2 .PDFs have EVERYTHING he said in class and more so I am really looking forward to looking them over.

The second lecture was by George Weigel on the 2 notions of freedom and it was excellent. He got to the root, and it was an affirmation of what I was reading into when I was reading the Free Society Reader in preparation that, essentially, the modern struggle about who man is is rooted in the Ockhamist Thomistic debate of the 13th and 14th century. Thomas had a "freedom for excellence" ideal in which reason/truth are the root of God and man, while Ockham had a "freedom for indifference" idea in which will and powerful assertion of the will is primary in God and man. Again, fascinating, though I noticed traces of stuff he had to say in Victoria.

After that it was lunch and I had it by myself today. After that I came back to the priory and hung out with some of my friends for a while. We then had discussion groups which were OUTSTANDING today. We went over time and the discussion was really excellent and I really enjoyed it. I noticed most of the problems the Pope is pointing out in Centissimus Annus are really apparent in Canada and that if we want Canada to survive in is in desperate need of change.

After that was Mass in which Fr. Maciej gave a great homily about how we ought to be joyful everytime we hear the words "the Word became flesh", just like the women who touched the cloak of Christ and was in fear and trembling, we should have the fear of God in us, and that if we don't jump for joy everytime we hear this, we have something wrong and really need to change.

Dinner was good. To be honest, I didn't enjoy the food that much and so ate very little. But the discussions were great. Steve White, George Weigel's assistant, myself, Ryan, and Brian were have a great discussion about the nature of vocations in which Steve told us how he finally came to discern marriage. Excellent discussion. Then we went into the next room to see everyone singing and we stuck around for about an hour singing a bunch of songs and having just an outstanding and amazing time. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces and enjoyed the company a lot. I have some video to show upon my return.

And now I've returned from yet another excellent day to prepare for tomorrow. Tomorrow is the trip to Auschwitz in the afternoon after the 2 morning classes and a quick lunch. To be honest, not looking too forward to it, it's a pretty depressing place, but the group is going and so I will go again.

God bless you all!

-Harrison

CCCB and the Principle of Subsidiarity

I swear, I'll stop posting at some point today!!

I am reading for Tertio Millennio right now and am reading an excellent article about the Church and its change in its stance towards Democracy over the past 150 years.

At this moment in time, I'm reading about the definition of the Principle of Subsidiarity. It is something I have pondered for a bit, and am looking for feedback.

Essentially, my question is: "Does the CCCB (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, or any conference of Catholic Bishops) defy the Principle of Subsidiarity?"

For those who don't know, essentially, the Principle of Subsidiarity is that whatever the individual can do within its community, one ought to let that individual do it. Larger organizations are only necessary when the smaller organizations (down to the organization of the one person) cannot do it themselves. For example, our Government runs the military because it is something we cannot run on an individual basis.

But this has got me wondering about the Conferences of Catholic Bishops. Essentially, the way a Bishop runs his Diocese is susceptible to the democratic (I use the term loosely here) functions of the CCCB.

This seems to circumvent the role of the Bishop, as the head of his local Church.

For example, the local Bishop is required to have the same lectionary as the rest of the Bishops in Canada. But what if the local Bishop wants a better translation (trust me, anything is better then the current one...needless to say "Catchers of People" makes me want to vomit!)? It seems that it is something he is capable of doing himself, why must he be subject to a larger bureaucracy if he is able to do so himself?

I would be interested in feedback, but it really seems to me that the Conferences of Catholic Bishops essentially are not serving the purpose they were created for. To my knowledge, the conferences were essentially created for the purpose of creating a sense of collegiality and unity (that is, fulfilling the principle of solidarity within the community of Bishops) and of creating one voice. Yet it is obvious that this is not happening, but instead has become a bureaucratic body in which the Conference makes all the decisions for the local Bishop. This seems to contradict the Principle of Subsidiarity, an essential tool in Catholic Social Thought.

I can see one objection already. "The Principle of Subsidiarity is to be applied to social circumstances only, and is not applicable to the Church". To my knowledge, however, that has never been formally defined as part of the principle.

So, I am interested to hear your feedback.

-Harrison