Traditional Catholics and secular culture

Started by Arvinger, January 01, 2018, 11:50:07 AM

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Mono no aware

Quote from: Jayne on January 03, 2018, 07:43:35 AMNo, Scipio did not take my position to a logical conclusion nor are you representing my position correctly.  I am saying that cultural norms are a factor not that they are the only things we consider.  One aspect of modesty is the wish not to draw attention to oneself.  Something dramatically different from what everyone else is wearing, drawing every eye to oneself, is not modest, not matter how much skin is covered.  This aspect of modesty requires consideration of the culture.  Other aspects of modesty, such as avoiding stimulating lust, are more independent of the culture.

I understand all this.  But let's just take pearls and Regency England.  Let's say the original stricture is "don't wear pearls," on the grounds that pearls are just needless glitz that draws attention to yourself.  Then, at some point in history, some popular English girl (admired by the ladies and desired by the men) defies that and starts wearing pearls, and others begin to follow her lead, until it becomes a trend and then by the nineteenth century it's the norm.  The original stricture fades into distant memory, and pearls become an acceptable form of bodily decoration in that culture.  Pearls become "modest" by virtue of no one seeing them as any big deal, which you are contending.  That's relativism, because you now accept a cultural norm that began by flaunting the stricture.

Just replace "pearls" with "bikinis" and you have effectively become Scipio.  You will argue that bikinis are different because they "stimulate lust," but the defenders of bikinis will simply say that in an all-bikini culture, people will have become conditioned to seeing all that skin as no big deal, in the same way you currently have traditional Catholics who mock the earlier standards on stimulating lust.  I am sure you are familiar with it: "oh noes!  Exposed knees!  I'm scandalized!"

james03

QuoteLeave it to you, Greg, to miss the point almost completely. (1)what were divorce and fornication rates a century ago in England and Europe compared to what they are today?
False dichotomy: Jansenism vs. Libertine.  Which is odd as you quote Belloc, i.e. red wine.

Merry Old England was merry because they were drinking pints and going to dances.  The Church acted to keep it in check, but you could be social and have fun.

Vice is in the extremes.  Too lax, and you are a libertine, too rigid, and you are Jansenist.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

ServusMariae

Turns out this thread is superbly popular. Like it's on fire.

Keep the discussion going, folks. It's intellectually simulating in many ways. (Just saying. :D )

Matto

#123
I just wanted to say a few things. About the terms "Jansenist rigorist" and "Jesuit laxist" I did not really mean them seriously, they were used jokingly because they are insults used to attack the other side. I actually do not even know what the beliefs of the Jansenists and Jesuits really were. I once considered reading the Letters Provinciales by Pascal to learn more about the debate but alas they were placed on the index so I gave up my desire to read them.

About being a rigorist and I say I am on that side of the debate, but no Jerome, who I loved. My influences were not the Jansenists, but from reading certain lives of the saints and thinking it would be a good idea to try to imitate them. Two of my influences were reading about the Cure of Ars and the desert fathers. So for example I learned that the desert fathers would eat only one meal a day and eat simply, perhaps a couple of biscuits or a bowl of lentils or how the Cure of Ars would eat a few boiled potatoes to the point that the devil would appear to him and call him "potato eater" and I thought we should try to imitate their examples in our own lives. As for it being hard, in some ways it was. Living in the world, as I mentioned before, it was too difficult to never look at women dressed immodesty because they are everywhere and I have to leave the house, but I would try to look at them without falling into lust. I do try to avoid most immodest movies and TV shows because I can avoid that, which means not watching television and rarely watching new movies. About eating, I was surprised that it was not that hard to eat less food in imitation of the desert fathers, though I had to stop doing that because I was losing too much weight. I found it harder to eat more and maintain moderation than to eat less and cut off all temptation. I have found that I would be happy living in isolation as long as I had access to the Mass and sacraments, "subsiting on tea and toast", a phrase Pon used that I loved so much that I am repeating it here. But I am not a normal person, not that I am better than other people, but that I am different from other people because I am ill and because of my illness I am unable to live a normal life of independence and work and marriage and raising children so in the world's eyes I am a loser of no account. Even here, sometimes people talk about hypothetical men as being losers and the hypotheticals match my own life pretty well.

About early Christianity being a dead religion. I don't know if that is an accurate thing to say because there have always been some in every age (even today there are Carthusians) who took up the call to rigorism. How could there be a Cure of Ars in the eighteen hundreds if the fire was dead? I find it interesting that he was made the patron saint of parish priests in modern times considering his life. Or perhaps it is a dead religion that is revived in every generation by a few nutcases who read the lives of the saints and think "I could do that" and have the goal of becoming one of those souls who eats no food except for daily Communion. But I guess those who do that will always be open to the accusation of pride and "prelest".

And Pon, you really did love AustrianOrthodoxCatholic who seems to be your favorite poster even though he only made a few dozen posts. I liked him also and thought his beliefs were interesting and would have loved to have learned more from him.
I Love Watching Butterflies . . ..

james03

QuoteSo for example I learned that the desert fathers would eat only one meal a day and eat simply, perhaps a couple of biscuits or a bowl of lentils or how the Cure of Ars would eat a few boiled potatoes to the point that the devil would appear to him and call him "potato eater" and I thought we should try to imitate their examples in our own lives.

Non sequitur.  Both were priests.  We are discussing State in Life, in particular a layman with a family to raise.

If due to your illness your State in Life is a single person, there is nothing wrong with practicing rigors under the direction of a Spiritual Advisor.  It is a good choice and I applaud it.  However if you decide to raise your infant on lentils  and biscuits, you will retard his development and even kill him.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

Jayne

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 03, 2018, 09:56:02 AM
Quote from: Jayne on January 03, 2018, 07:43:35 AMNo, Scipio did not take my position to a logical conclusion nor are you representing my position correctly.  I am saying that cultural norms are a factor not that they are the only things we consider.  One aspect of modesty is the wish not to draw attention to oneself.  Something dramatically different from what everyone else is wearing, drawing every eye to oneself, is not modest, not matter how much skin is covered.  This aspect of modesty requires consideration of the culture.  Other aspects of modesty, such as avoiding stimulating lust, are more independent of the culture.

I understand all this.  But let's just take pearls and Regency England.  Let's say the original stricture is "don't wear pearls," on the grounds that pearls are just needless glitz that draws attention to yourself.  Then, at some point in history, some popular English girl (admired by the ladies and desired by the men) defies that and starts wearing pearls, and others begin to follow her lead, until it becomes a trend and then by the nineteenth century it's the norm.  The original stricture fades into distant memory, and pearls become an acceptable form of bodily decoration in that culture.  Pearls become "modest" by virtue of no one seeing them as any big deal, which you are contending.  That's relativism, because you now accept a cultural norm that began by flaunting the stricture.

I don't think it is relevant that the cultural norm began by flaunting the stricture.  It was wrong to do that but years later when people saw wearing pearls as modest, it was, in fact, modest.  It is not relativism to say that circumstances can change the moral nature of an act.  Killing an enemy soldier might be good.  Killing one's child is bad.  The only exception to the need to consider circumstances is acts that are intrinsically evil.  I do not see that we have reason to believe that wearing pearls is intrinsically evil.  It is only relativism if one is dealing with a moral absolute.

Saying that whether modesty is a virtue depends on the culture would be relativism.  Saying that how modesty is expressed depends on the culture is (in most cases) not relativism.

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 03, 2018, 09:56:02 AM
Just replace "pearls" with "bikinis" and you have effectively become Scipio.  You will argue that bikinis are different because they "stimulate lust," but the defenders of bikinis will simply say that in an all-bikini culture, people will have become conditioned to seeing all that skin as no big deal, in the same way you currently have traditional Catholics who mock the earlier standards on stimulating lust.  I am sure you are familiar with it: "oh noes!  Exposed knees!  I'm scandalized!"

As I recall, Scipio was not talking about some theoretical all-bikini culture, but claiming that bikinis were modest in our culture because they were common.  I think this is a different issue than the one you are talking about. 

In any event, I disagree that allowing for cultural differences is identical to relativism.  Culture is a legitimate factor to consider, but not the only one.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

Matto

Quote from: james03 on January 03, 2018, 10:39:51 AMNon sequitur.  Both were priests.  We are discussing State in Life, in particular a layman with a family to raise.
Yes, and his standards were different for people of different states. He would recommend priests to fast every day and sleep on the bare floor and use the discipline. But he was more lenient with laymen and women who had to work as far as fasting and penances went. But there were some areas where he was very strict for all, such as refusing absolution to young people who did not promise to never go to dances. So swing dances and ballet were out of the question for the youth or Ars in his time.
I Love Watching Butterflies . . ..

Lydia Purpuraria

#127
Quote from: Matto on January 03, 2018, 10:32:01 AMAnd Pon, you really did love AustrianOrthodoxCatholic who seems to be your favorite poster even though he only made a few dozen posts. I liked him also and thought his beliefs were interesting and would have loved to have learned more from him.

AustrianOrthodoxCatholic really was an interesting poster.  He came and left during my self-imposed ban and it appears he's not coming back which is pretty disappointing.  I would've liked reading more from him as well.  And I thoroughly enjoyed the exchanges between him and PdR  -- would've liked reading more of those, too; but alas, such is life!

Greg

#128
I have to say, that when I see African tribal women with their saggy boobs hanging down or spend time on the beaches of France or Italy, (though topless bating is much reduced now thanks to Muslim males being everywhere in the EU), it never gets my needle off zero.

These things vary with age too, as well as context.

We recently visited a 44 year old married lady who I knew as a young Trad.  Hadn't seen her for 19 years.  She was the best looking women I have ever seen in UK Tradom when she was young.  And I have never seen a better looking Trad woman since either.

I used to walk down the street with her when we went out to places and car drivers would nearly crash into other cars because she was so distracting.  It was actually pretty funny at the time.  Think Cindi Crawford in her heyday.  She was stunning.  When we visited, she dug out an old crumpled photograph ( at my insistence ) to show her teenage boys what a looker she was back then.  To them she was just "mum" of course, as is the way.  Before I saw the crumpled photograph I questioned whether she really looked as good as I remember, but the photo confirmed she did.

The only practical way she could have avoided being a distraction or "occasion of sin" would be to wear a burqa.
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

Greg

Quote from: Matto on January 03, 2018, 10:47:40 AM
Quote from: james03 on January 03, 2018, 10:39:51 AMNon sequitur.  Both were priests.  We are discussing State in Life, in particular a layman with a family to raise.
Yes, and his standards were different for people of different states. He would recommend priests to fast every day and sleep on the bare floor and use the discipline. But he was more lenient with laymen and women who had to work as far as fasting and penances went. But there were some areas where he was very strict for all, such as refusing absolution to young people who did not promise to never go to dances. So swing dances and ballet were out of the question for the youth or Ars in his time.

The French are a pretty passionate lot and I always wonder whether it is the dancing taking place in public that is objected to here, or the chance of meeting up and fornicating in a nearby hackstack or barn which would pretty much be the likely outcome unless people were watched like hawks.  Parents back then were too busy to chaperone their children.

Perhaps "dances" at that time were really just a cover for meeting up with the opposite sex for other means.  Unlike modern writers, Catholic writers in the past left a lot of things unsaid for fear of scandalising the reader.

What were these dances?

Just a dance with the opposite sex?
The historical equivalent of flirting on a social network platform today?
Or the 19th Century's equivalent of a modern nightclub, complete with booze and bawdy songs?
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

Matto

#130
Two other beliefs of the Cure of Ars which seem strict today to me were that he condemned taverns that sold alcohol to the men of the town and accused them of stealing the money of the poor women who were married to the men who went to the taverns. So he would not have liked trads meeting at the local tavern to drink whiskey, smoke pipes and talk about Pope Francis. And that the farmers used to sell lots of produce and they would put the good looking vegetables on the top of the pile and the lesser quality vegetables on the bottom so that the buyers could not see the lesser quality vegetables and would be deceived into buying lower quality produce. The Cure condemned this as stealing and said those who did it owed restitution towards those who bought the goods even though this practice was expected and everyone knew about it.

Perhaps modern day traditional Catholics are like squirrels in alien territory digging in the ground looking for nuts buried by other squirrels. There are the red squirrels and the grey squirrels and the white squirrels and the black squirrels all looking for the same nuts. I say that but I don't really know what it means it just thought interesting at the time I thought of it.
I Love Watching Butterflies . . ..

Greg

#131
I'd like to resurrect him and bring him to this time just to see the look on his drawn out face when he learned about the canonised "saints" JP2, P6 and humble Pope Francis' teachings.

Then take him for a Trad's square dance, with booze, and see whether he was still nitpicking about those peccadillos or ended up ranting all night long about "How the Church could have gone to hell in a hand-basket like this".  Then, when he was drunk enough, we could tell him about Assisi 2 and the Satanic enthronement ceremony at the Vatican, all the stories of clerical paedophilia, and watch his face turn double-ashen again.

I would bet good money he wouldn't give a shit about taverns when he saw the damage the Church's own hierarchy inflicted.  No publican ever did as much damage as the clerics serving poison to the laity over the last 50 years.
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

JubilateDeo

Quote from: Pon de Replay on January 03, 2018, 09:15:49 AM
Quote from: John Lamb on January 02, 2018, 08:53:39 PMPon de Replay points to an abandonment of Catholic morals in the Church, even before Vatican II. His assertion that Early Christianity is dead and not alive in the Catholic Church because of moral laxity is due to gross exaggeration. First of all, decadence in the Church does not imply that the Church has apostatised. There were men of a similar spirit to Pon de Replay's in the Middle Ages who left the Church because they were scandalised by the decadent lives of many of her prelates at the time. St. Paul talks about degenerate behaviour for example in the Church of Corinth; while Pon de Replay extolls the moral rigour of the Church Fathers, he neglects to mention (from what I've read) that the same Church Fathers were decrying the widespread moral laxity among the Christians of their times, i.e. these Fathers were extraordinary examples of Christian virtue in their times, so one can hardly take their preaching as evidence that the Church was unequivocally more clean morally in their times than the Church has been in modern times. I'm not an historian of any sort but what I've heard doesn't seem to imply that the Church Fathers presided over a pristine Church; and for that matter, the apostles themselves in the New Testament complain of the errors and deviations in the Church already present. Now, one can undoubtedly say that there has been a collapse of Catholic morals in modern times, and especially after the modernisation project of Vatican II: but what could one expect when the Church has been so viciously persecuted, openly and surreptitiously, high and low, from within and from without, in modern times? We are talking about a persecution that has not been matched since the days of the pagan Roman emperors. And yet, despite all that, we still have our St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Maximilien Kolbe, and St. Padre Pio. So for Pon de Replay to imply that the Church has apostatised and Christianity no longer exists is frankly insulting. The Church still teaches Catholic morals and we still have saints practicing them. That we have so many traitors in the hierarchy and such a confused and fractured laity as a result has not prevented this, as the Church has the protection of the Holy Spirit. I had an interesting conversation with Pon de Replay a while back on this forum, where he talked about his loss of faith. He admitted early in this thread that he had tried to practice it rigorously but then gave up. I don't know the man and I can only speculate (and I hope not unjustly), but perhaps his trying to practice the faith in an over-rigorous fashion is what lead to his loss of faith. Whether he was holding himself or others to too a high a standard and ending up despairing as a result - I don't know. But the dangers of a too strict moral rigourism must be very strongly warned against, as with moral laxism.

I apologize, John Lamb, for insulting the faith.  That was not my intention.  Just to clarify on two points: first, it is not my contention that Christianity no longer exists.  Clearly it does.  At this point, however, I am simply in no position to say in which denomination it wholly subsists.  Taking the Early Church, I would say that the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have more or less its doctrine, and that the Russian Old Believers and Mennonites have more or less its practice.  (I am stressing the "more or less" with italics because I have been misconstrued here as implying that the Old Believers are the true Christians.  That is not my claim.  I am only speaking generally).  In terms of the Church apostatizing, all I am saying is that if maintaining those early disciplines was necessary for the Church not to defect, then my conclusion would be that the Church has defected.  Obviously, traditional Catholics do not believe that those practices were necessary for the faith to continue or for the Church to be indefectable.  (As Greg points out, though, "indefectable" can be conveniently redefined at every failure).

Secondly, I would only want to repeat what I've said elsewhere on certain threads: I did not lapse from my so-called "Jansenist rigorist" practices because I found them too difficult or got burnt out on them.  Almost the opposite, in fact: I think I actually had a greater mental clarity and focus during those days.  I almost wish I could get that back.  Sometimes when I listen to the kinds of music I was permitting myself back then (like Bach's cello suites or John Dowland's Lachrimae), I get somewhat nostalgic for it (and by "it," I can only suggest something along the lines of "contemplation").  I can still listen to the music, of course, but I can't recover the benefits that came from the disciplines.  What eventually drove me out of it, though, was the cognitive dissonance that came from the nagging suspicion that I was creating my own personal religion.  I didn't have the confidence in myself to believe that I was on the right track and that the majority of traditional Catholics were on the wrong one (presumably leading to a ... "fiery end").  And this goes back to the problem of epistemology: I was on a sola scriptura path of sorts, where my scriptura consisted mostly of the Early Church Fathers and Meister Eckhart and Thomas à Kempis, spiced with some Stoics and Neoplatonists.  I was ignoring the fact that the Catholic Church no longer demanded the rigors of the Early Church.  Eventually I came to realize that I had become my own pope in my own little spiritual cocoon, and that's not the Catholic Church, which is a community of believers.

So for me, the problem with "Jansenism" (or whatever anyone wants to call it) isn't that it's difficult.  It is difficult, of course, but once you clear the highest hurdles it has a beneficial and calming effect.  The only thing that perturbs the calm is if you have an intellectual tendency to consider whether you really belong to a living religion or whether you've recreated one out of the past.  That's why I've said: the Jesuits won and the Jansenists lost.  That battle is over and the Jeromes are the Japanese holdouts.  Look, if the Catholic religion was the religion of a former user on this forum named AustrianOrthodoxCatholic, I would be a Catholic.  The sad truth, however, is that that person was simply an unparalleled genius in creating the best possible Christian patchwork from the best variety of sources from the past.  It's like reanimating a corpse.  Even if it's beautiful, it's still the undead; it's still a zombie.  I'm just trying to face the facts here.  Last week I discovered a millennial band called The Blue Angel Lounge that sounds better the higher you turn the volume, which I never would have discovered if I was still a so-called "Jansenist."  Meanwhile Greg is waiting on an apocalyptic phantasmagoria of fireballs raining down from the sky on Catholic bishops and homosexuals (or maybe that's a redundancy).  Someone else is probably waiting for Pope Francis to grant Adriana Lima an annulment.  I don't know.  It's all pretty wild.  To each their own.

I think you're forgetting that "Catholic" means "universal."  We have a 2,000 year history and I think it's silly to think that there is one perfect time in the Church that we should all recreate and return to.  I can't be too worried if the current traditional movement isn't frowning on the same things that St. John Vianney or St. John Chrysostom frowned on.  They were taking care of their flocks, and I have my own priests who are taking care of me.

I am not going to tell you how to make sense of the crisis, the only thing I can say is that the story isn't over yet, and we just have to trust that the gates of hell will not prevail.  Our Lord wouldn't have had to say that if it He didn't have the foreknowledge that there would be a time in which it would appear that the gates of hell were prevailing. 

I realize that not everyone is lucky enough to live near an Institute parish, but my solution to the crisis is to find the best place I can to be Catholic and raise my children.  For me, that means trusting the Canon at my parish and soaking in their spiritual advice.  I also have another traditional priest who resides at my parish who has been my spiritual father for years.  Between him, and the Canons who staff our church, I don't feel the need to spend hours combing over homilies given by saintly priests from another time and cultivating a "countercultural" lifestyle that is going to make me into such a freak that no one in my family or surrounding community can relate to me.  My priests have never said anything about my makeup (or the lack thereof).  I've never been turned away from confession because I was wearing pants or nail polish.  The closest thing was when I showed up to spiritual direction wearing yoga pants, a messy bun, and no makeup, giant dark circles under my eyes from the sleep deprivation, and Father asked if everything was OK.

Right now I'm trying to get back into shape and am realizing that growing in holiness and pursuing fitness are very similar.  Some people can just join a gym and see good results by winging it and following the advice in one of those standard diet books, but we all could benefit from a personal trainer to give us an individualized plan.  One set of exercises might be the perfect thing for one person, but for another person it might destroy their joints for life.  I am lucky that I went to the doctor BEFORE embarking on a fitness plan, because apparently my blood pressure is so high, that it's not safe for me to do just any excercise and I have to stick to really gentle stuff until my BP can be regulated with medication.  If I followed generic exercise advice, it would probably backfire on me.  The doctor told me to lose one to two pounds per week.

Some people who go to the gym are already bodybuilders.  There are women there who look like supermodels.  If I were to idolize these stick thin women, I would never succeed because I'd feel so bad about myself that I wouldn't go back to the gym.  I have to aspire to be the healthiest version of myself I can be.  I have to accept that there will always be jiggly parts and I will never have that perfect body that some women have, but I am aiming for the best version of myself in light of my genetics and physical capabilities.

Spiritual growth is the same way.  Everything I read on the internet has to be tempered with what my own spiritual Fathers have to say, as well as my husband.   While I admire the austerity of the ancients, it just doesn't carry as much weight as the advice I get from my own spiritual director right in front of me, as well as the sermons that they preach to our congregation, which are focused on the things we need to hear.  I have to trust that God is guiding the real priests He has put in my life and that if I follow their advice and seek to please Him through my state in life, I will be the type of saint God wants me to be. 

If the things you did back when you were a "Jansenist" helped you to detach more from the world, that's great, but detachment from the world means NOTHING if we're not attaching ourselves to God.  We all have things we need to detach from in order to have union with God, but detachment is the means, not the end.  It makes perfect sense to me that the modes of detachment would vary according to time, place, and person, but the end goal is always the same throughout the ages.  What if you could accept that the Church is big enough to accomodate the spirituality you've cultivated for yourself alongside many other ways of living the Gospel? 

How useful was rigorism if you're not even Catholic anymore?  If you're not even going to Mass and receiving the sacraments anymore, then it doesn't take a rigorist to conclude that your soul is in grave danger.

Jacob

Quote from: ServusMariae on January 03, 2018, 10:20:46 AM
Turns out this thread is superbly popular. Like it's on fire.

"Women in pants" and derivative topics are time-honored and beloved here at SD and its predecessor fora.
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
--Neal Stephenson

obscurus

#134
Time and time again I have seen families take such a harsh stance on the outside world who end up in a worse state than the first. One lady I have known ended up leaving Tradition, starting wearing pants, and eventually leaving the Faith. She was super-staunch and dictated what all the young women should wear. Well, a person can only act this way for such a time. Stretch a rubber band too much and tell me what happens.

You can't do such violence to nature. I am not talking about coddling our fallen human nature. Penance is necessary, prayer is necessary, but so is (true) charity, and so is healthy recreation.

We live in society and we must learn to deal with the outside world with intelligence and humor. What was that famous saying of Chesterton? "The secret of life is laughter and humility". I work with people who are far from the Faith and while I lament that I can't have an intelligent conversation with them about the mystery of the Trinity and the Crisis in the Church, I have to cooperate with them by not putting on some pious front. I can't be a loner at work. If I was not confident in the truth of the Faith, I simply would have joined the hedonism of my peers.

Are we really convinced of the Faith? I am but I need to be humble about it.