O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee, . . .
—Francis Thompson, “The Kingdom of God”
This review presents an unusual challenge. As a regular reader of the author’s excellent Rod Dreher’s Diary, I followed the work’s development from its inception, read excerpts online, and even offered an opinion on which cover image was best. So the issue here is how well the execution fulfills the design.
As demonstrated by his previous books, The Benedict Option and Live Not by Lies, Dreher is exquisitely sensitive to nascent cultural, religious, and intellectual trends that will affect society. Living in Wonder examines the mega-trend underlying these lesser ones: the disenchantment of our world. It traces the causes, effects, and potential remedies for the tragic estrangement of humans from Nature and from their own embodied selves.
Wonder and the deeper reality
Dreher insists that enchantment is not some special technique that will fabricate bespoke epiphanies. Our universe is already imbued with wonder; we need only open our hearts to encounter this. Perceiving deeper reality will inspire us to fight for it against the chaos and evil that threaten it, for the world is both brighter—and darker—than we think.
Living in Wonder begins with provocative testimony Dreher heard from a young American lawyer about bizarre encounters first attributed to extraterrestrial aliens that were later exposed as demonic. Then he offers an English drug addict’s account of his miraculous healing in the River Jordan and a Hungarian Evangelical’s plea for direct perception of God. Dreher’s book seeks to demonstrate “the profound human need to believe that we live and move and have our being in the presence of God—not just the idea of God but the God who is as near to us as the air we breathe, the light we see, and the solid ground on which we walk.”
Here and throughout Living in Wonder, Dreher’s prose shimmers like sunrise on the sea when narrating numinous anecdotes directly from the lips of those who experienced them. His loveliest example describes walking with a joyful (though recently widowed) friend across a flower-strewn plain in Italy. The miracle is simply the “dearest freshness” of wild Nature drawing men into resonance with herself. He is his own principal witness because this book is partly his own spiritual memoir, recording his own faith journey from irreligion to Catholicism to Orthodoxy.
Having gotten our attention, Dreher digs for the roots of contemporary despair. But not all of his excavations are equally deep. Although detailed rebuttals are beyond the scope of this review, be aware that Dreher’s grasp of history, especially Church history, is weaker than his other areas of knowledge. Despite acknowledging the existence of a Catholic mystical tradition, he says no more about it. Furthermore, he seems unacquainted with Catholic “popular religion” of any era. Intellectuals set religious agendas, but that does not automatically determine how ordinary people live their faith.
Although Dreher cites Catholic sources and informants, as well as a few Evangelical ones, his text slants gently East. Some rude Catholics mock Dreher because of his commitment to Orthodoxy, which he sees as preserving the ancient symbols, rituals, hierarchies, and practices that give “a profound description of how reality works. He faults Catholic dependence on propositional theology that treats “the world as an object to be contemplated, not a subject to be integrated through spiritual penetration of the divine energies.” We need to remember that Eastern and Western Christendom did not suddenly start going their own ways because of the Great Schism in 1054; they split because they’d already been going their own ways for centuries. Christ’s Church needs to breathe with both lungs, as St. John Paul II famously declared.
The roots of disenchantment
Dreher’s search for roots uncovers the usual disenchanters—the Scholastics, Ockham, and Descartes—and historical movements that drained the world of wonder—the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution. Once philosophers had divorced the natural from the supernatural and removed matters of faith from philosophy, they gradually erased the supernatural from Western consciousness. Influenced by these ideas, the Reformation was “an engine of disenchantment” that exiled “the numinous from the collective consciousness of Western Christianity.” Successive eras banished mystery. They made science the only source of truth, money the only source of worth, and utility the only measure of value.
The Myth of Modern Progress has raised the West high on the twin pillars of Science and Technology, but unprecedented wealth and untrammeled freedom have not brought happiness. Too many contemporary people are monads adrift in a meaningless universe devoid of hope, organisms reduced to mere algorithms. They are at risk of enslavement by what English writer Paul Kingsnorth calls “The Machine,” the social forces breaking boundaries, destroying limits, homogenizing identities, like a swarm of self-replicating robots churning a planet to gray goo. The Machine is “anti-nature and thus anti-human.”
As Christianity melts out of the West, more and more people—especially young ones—prefer to describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” At most, these “nonverts” may practice a vague Morally Therapeutic Deism. Their disillusionment could leave an opening for Islam, as in Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, or for some pseudo-religion of their own design or even the occult.
The turn to occultism has been accelerating since the New Age enthusiasms of the 1970s and ‘80s. (This reviewer’s first sale to the Catholic press was an article on Neo-Paganism in 1983.) But the phenomenon has moved far beyond Gerald Gardner’s Wicca and Anton La Vey’s Church of Satan, thanks to its “normalization” in popular art and media: the general public can now recognize a pentagram or Baphomet or a Tarot card. Occultism conveniently tracks with Progressivism: sex-positive, feminist, LGBT-friendly, and environmentally sensitive.
Today’s occultists are often wildly eclectic, combining elements from whatever cultures they can plunder and increasingly transgressive. (Aleister Crowley, the “Great Beast” would be so proud.) Whether devotees of the Triple Goddess, Santa Muerte, the orishas, or Satan himself, they practice their rituals because these seem to “work.” Christian prayers did not yield the same satisfying results on command. Supposed effectiveness and the promise of control are reportedly making magic chic in Silicon Valley.
Dreher is concerned that most Christian churches are unprepared for dealing with the occult, much less the demonic. Among others, he interviews, exorcists, a diabolically possessed woman, and a young scholar once deeply immersed in the blasphemous perversions of Crowleyite sex “magick”. The peril is real, but Dreher urges us to concentrate on God’s genuine wonders rather than obsess over counterfeit demonic ones.
Technology against authentic transformation
Advanced technology, especially informational technology, is a tool of “liquid modernity” dissolving the human past. It is reshaping users’ brains, damaging the ability to concentrate. The internet has become society’s external nervous system, replacing real experiences with virtual ones, providing a limitless supply of custom-made distractions, and offering universal knowledge without wisdom. Yoked with Artificial Intelligence, it can dissociate parts of the psyche to fabricate other selves, generate any desired words or images, and provide better companionship than other human beings. It even promises electronic immortality, fulfilling the ancient Gnostic dream of freedom from physical embodiment. The metaphysics of godless modernity is digital.
The section of Living in Wonder most likely to cause controversy is Dreher’s speculations about UFOs: they are diabolical delusions, not extraterrestrial visitors. (How many UFOs are really “unexplained”?) Evangelicals were already saying that in the late twentieth century but Dreher extrapolates from ideas published in 1989 by French astronomer and information specialist Jacques Vallée. Spirits pretending to be aliens or discorporate evolved beings from some other dimension could use information technology to spread a new religion of Anti-Christ—especially if arrogant “techbros” foolishly summon them in search of greater knowledge.
Instead, Dreher bids us open ourselves to God’s real Cosmos, bursting with wonders visible and invisible. “The Christian tradition draws us across the border of ourselves to resonate and reconcile with creation and to draw into ourselves the meaning the Creator built into his handiwork.” True enchantment is not added; it is discovered where it already is.
This transformation comes through prayer, which is steadily fixing our attention on God.
As St. Augustine said, “What we attend to, we love; what we love, we will become.” Through grace, we can become like God (theosis) and join the Great Dance of his Creation (perichoresis). A life of prayer requires sustained effort, personal sacrifice, and submission to the will of God—in short, true conversion of the heart. (Dreher describes his own physical and psychological healing through the Jesus Prayer.) Although we cannot compel spiritual manifestations, we can prepare ourselves to receive them through prayer and openness to wonder.
Another door to wonder is beauty, which “harrows the soul” to make it fruitful. It reminds us to accept life and the natural world as a gift, thereby honoring the Giver. Dreher lovingly describes the hierophanies he encountered through beauty: at Chartres Cathedral, at the Orthodox monastery of Sucevita in Romania, in Dante’s Divine Comedy, and in Russian director Andre Tarkovsky’s films Andre Rublev and Nostalgia.
Testimonies and triumph
Dreher continues this theme with profiles of three makers of beauty—all converts to Orthodoxy—who exemplify lives lived in wonder. English writer Martin Shaw bids us recover the mythic dimension of life and accept suffering (“the Way of Ashes”) to achieve wisdom. Paul Kingsnorth, an English writer living in Ireland, is entranced by Nature, which he calls awesome because God, not us, made it. He admonishes us to “Keep Christianity simple, and wild, and ascetic, and beautiful, and loving.” Jonathan Pageau, a French-Canadian carver of icons, is also a writer and speaker who uses social media to proclaim that everything in the visible world is a symbol of the unseen world.
Living in Wonder closes with more personal testimonies from Dreher: what he learned from an evocative image of St. Galgano by Italian artist Luca Daum and a visit to the shrine where that medieval saint’s sword remains embedded in stone; his restorative experience with the Holy Fire in Jerusalem at the lowest point in his life; and hints of an apocalyptic dream that he fears is coming true.
Dreher agrees with Karl Rahner’s warning: “In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic. . . or nothing at all.” Theological treasures of Christendom are useless unless they lead to a personal relationship with Christ. Disenchanted moderns “don’t want to know about God; they want to know God.” Christ is the medium through which God communicates the message of himself.
Seek the living God while you may, says Dreher, but “take courage because the Lion of Judah has triumphed.”
In conclusion, Living in Wonder does fulfill its promise as a wonder-filled invitation to enchantment. Dreher strides across today’s vast spiritual deserts, searching for springs of living water. But his book is no typical critique of Western decadence. Its power lies in the stories it tells of real people’s spiritual struggles, not in “some fairytale past” but in our disenchanted modern times. We see wounded men and women—including the author—seeking, finding, and loving God, the God who loved them before he laid the foundations of this marvelous earth.
Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age
By Rod Dreher
Zondervan, 2024
Hardcover, 288 pages
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A beautifully written review. Thank you Ms. Miesel.
We read: “the Reformation was ‘an engine of disenchantment’ that exiled ‘the numinous from the collective consciousness of Western Christianity’.”
And, unless we are attentive to the numinous, in its legitimate quest for concreteness, synodalism will degenerate into the broken GPS system for the “engine revved up in the 16th Century. And, about those who claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” other than the religion of occultism we also find the triad religion of Evolutionism, Technocracy, and (Dawkins’) Random Universe. This was the thesis unpacked in the last three chapters of a book by yours truly, entitled “A Generation Abandoned,” 2017. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/03/29/a-generation-abandoned-why-whatever-is-not-enough/
Thanks for the great review. I just bought my copy. I think it will be my spiritual reading for Advent. A good way to prepare for the wonder of Christmas! 🙂
Not just the idea of God but the God who is as near to us as the air we breathe, the light we see, and the solid ground on which we walk (Dreher). A person who perceives the wonder of creation and remains unhappy with the world is contemplative at heart.
Dreher’s religion is kaleidoscopic – due to an exaggerated sense of enchantment that is itself a form of idolatry? That apparently is what drives him to explore the occult, the unknown phenomena at least alleged phenomena. I don’t believe blips on a pilot’s visual screen amount to anything, literally since there’s no tangible evidence.
Dreher is interesting nonetheless and has a decent perspective on good and evil and the present plight of Mankind. Mystic? Must we all be? Dreher does have some important convictions shown by Ms Miesel. Her essay fills in my limited knowledge of our modern day mystical renaissance man.
Father, LIVING IN WONDER warns against occultism, using testimonies from people who became deeply immersed in it to their misfortune. Speculations about UFOs being demonic illusions have been circulating for decades. An Evangelical named Tal Brooke of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project gave a presentation on this at a Steubenville conference in 1990 where I was speaking on Neo-Paganism.
Researching occultism is not the same as practicing it! Otherwise you’d better condemn me before you criticize Rod Dreher because it’s a subject I know much better than he does.
Thank you, dear Sandra Miesel for an insightful unwrapping of dear Rod Dreher’s new book. Certainly, The Kingdom of GOD is close to us, even within us; with the means to make sense of that truth given us by Jesus Christ & His Apostles. Excellent!
And yet . . . there’s something missing – obedience to Christ’s commands.
Without that, many great mystics & miracle-workers will be told: “I do not know you!”
See, for example, Matthew 7:21-23
Numerous examples of the proper way occur in The New Testament, such as John 14:21 –>
“Anyone who receives My commandments & keeps them will be one who loves Me; & they will be loved by My Father, & I shall love them & show Myself to them.”
“If anybody loves Me they will keep My Word, & My Father will love them, & We shall come to them & make our home with them.”
That is uniquely the greatest mystical experience possible.
Without obedience as our central, non-negotiable focus, one fears that the pursuit of enchanted experiences, etc. will prove unfruitful.
Many Catholic, E. Orthodox, Protestant, & Pentecostal leaders teach a doctrine of ‘success’; a few major on ‘the inner life’; scarcely any focus on: 1. finding Jesus Christ in Person; 2. hearing Him, &: 3. by His Grace, learning to obey His commands.
In comparison to the magnificent intellect & brilliant powers of Eternal GOD – seen only in part in the supremely elegant structuring of our universe, world, life, & humanity we – even at our zenith – are merely billions of transient specks. That GOD wants us as family, is indescribably amazing! Yet, Jesus says that is so.
So in the words of Matt Redman’s song:
“May we never lose the wonder; Oh, the wonder of Your mercy . . . ”
That awesome wonder really only get’s traction and can only bear fruit when we resolve to learn obedience to Our LORD, on a day-to-day basis.
Always in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
“the usual disenchanters—the Scholastics…”. Please, enough of this Gnostic nonsense. Creation is not the creator. Bravo to the Scholastics for making clear this truth which modernity and the old paganism dispute. Sacralisation of the world is not the mission of the Church; it was the mission of paganism, which can never be revived in the West apart from the ugly form of occultism it is taking. This horrible spirit needs to be driven out of the Church, which needs to project light aplenty upon it so that all can see its evil nature, no matter how much it desires to inhabit out rituals, religious terminology etc. Thank heaven for Scholasticism. We know the Gnostics and pagans can never forgive it. Who cares?
Do you even know what Gnosticism means? It’s a denial of material reality in favor of “spiritual knowledge” attained by the favored few, “the Knowers.” LIVING IN WONDER condemns the neo-Gnosticism of certain techies. Christianity is a profoundly “incarnational” faith where Creation bears the marks of the Creator and points to him.
Your jumping to conclusions about my “knowledge” seems to have assumed I am not one of the “favoured few”. This work is a celebration of neo-animism and immanentism that sees sacralising the world as the purpose of religion. But to assume that the material world is in need of such a thing is pure Gnosticism because this implies there is something wrong with God’s creation that can be remedied by us. But the purpose of religion is transcendent; man’s end is otherwordly. There is also an assumption in this work that the non-material world is good. But we know by the Faith that evil is present in the world only in the actions of spiritual beings and ensouled men. Saint Augustine said it; sin comes from the spirit. The Incarnation refers to Our Lord becoming a man, nothing else. Scholasticism’s greatest achievement is to maintain the pure meaning of words, so that they can convey the truths we need to know. Without this kind of “rationalism” there will be no faith because almost the entirety of mankind learns to believe by means of language, the Gospel preached with authority. Please be careful with Dreher’s writings.
“Please be careful with Dreher’s writings.”
Very insightful and wise, Miguel. While somewhat well-intentioned people like Sandra Miesel tend to gloss over or even defend Dreher’s sad and completely Inexcusable apostasy from the Catholic Church, her own words in her largely fawning review throw up a red flag warning that wiser people like you and others will recognize and keep them away from the book or read it with substantial caution and alertness to its flaws that can harm many good people.
In addition to the neo-animism and gnostic elements you mention in Dreher’s book that are highly problematic in their own right, also consider the following: Meisel writes approvingly of Dreher that “He is his own principal witness because this book is partly his own spiritual memoir, recording his own faith journey from irreligion to Catholicism to Orthodoxy.” However, a more truthful and not cruel or inappropriate but indeed most beneficial statement would more accurately and fully describe Dreher’s faith journey as one that has gone from irreligion to Catholicism to soul-endangering Apostasy now manifesting itself in his membership in the Schismatic Orthodox religion, and it would also include the hope that Dreher return to Catholicism without delay, but does Meisel even care if he does or think it’s important that he do so?
Whether or not Meisel thinks it’s important for Dreher to return to Catholicism, her review of his book contains her desire for many Catholics to read it. Now I ask you and others: what if the book’s depiction of Dreher’s falling away from Catholicism and into the soul-endangering apostasy that also glamorizes some aspects of Orthodoxy appeal to some Catholics and convinces them to follow Dreher into apostasy as well? Would that be praiseworthy in any sense? This is a very real danger when praise is lavished on a book with many flaws, and such praise also contains a tacit approval or acceptance of one’s journey into apostasy.
Miguel, your warning to “please be careful with Dreher’s writings” is much more helpful to the souls of many than Sandra Meisel’s unsound praise that can harm many, including Dreher himself as it unwisely and uncharitably provides him with more support for his inexcusable apostasy from the Lord’s Church.
“Fawning review”? You should see what I can do with a killer one.But at least you called me “well-meaning.”
I am flabbergasted by comments from people who have yet to read Living in Wonder who claim to see both Gnosticism and animism in this book, given that they are opposites. (Is some website or writer spreading this charge?) Gnosticism teaches that the material universe is Evil, the creation of an Evil god while animism sees divinity in Nature. Rod Dreher does not advocate either view! It is an ancient and well-grounded Christian opinion that Creation, the First Book of Revelation, points to the Creator. Thus the Bible and the Church use symbols drawn from Nature to stand for spiritual realities–or so my pre-Vatican II Catholic education taught me. Heaven only knows what you’d make of theosis, our ultimate participation in the Life of God.
Dear Sandra. Animism, like Gnosticism, believes the material world to be “inhabited” by superior forces. These forces “incarnated” in the world, to use your unfortunate expression, can be good, bad or idiosyncratic. The purpose of religion for animists and Gnostics is to handle the forces incarnated in the world. They both believe this chaos has always been an aspect of the world.
Dreher has the same idea of religion’s purpose as the “sacralisation” of this world; the idea that Christianity and its rituals, vocabulary and beliefs can be reinvented as a kind of magic to condition THIS world. But sacralising this world is purely secularist endeavour, by definition (as Saint Thomas says in De regimine principum). The sacred places in the old Western landscape were there to remind people of their destination, or to obliterate the old pagan world – never to sacralise this world.
In the Catholic view, the world is a good thing, a creation of God. It’s a stage for the human drama, but it has no moral agency of its own. It can’t be “influenced”.
Thank you for your reflections and warning about some parts of Mr. Dreher’s book that promote his apostasy. I shall pray for Mr. Dreher in the hopes that he will be given the grace to give up his apostasy and return to the Faith. Unfortunately, it appears that others believe his mystical-type ramblings are more important than his immortal soul.
I was under the impression that apostasy means completely abandoning the Christian faith. Rod Dreher did not convert to Buddhism, Islam, or atheism: he left Catholicism for Orthodox Christianity. To be sure, for someone to leave the Catholic fold is sinful, but I believe Dreher has written that he was in danger of losing his Christian faith altogether when he encountered the Orthodox Church. Dreher no longer believes that his salvation relies on his being in communion with the Pope of Rome. Of course, I would prefer that Dreher reverts to Catholicism (I was in the Orthodox Church from 1990 to 2003, when I reverted to Catholicism — I think my years in the Orthodox Church made me a better Christian and gave me a love of icons, the Psalms and the Mother of God), but I doubt that he will face eternal damnation if he fails to do so and dies as an Orthodox Christian.
Thanks Tom. Katheryn, I don’t think Dreher really had to change much to join the Orthodox Church, however. His is a sui generis religion, mostly to do with esoteric beliefs linked to Gnosticism and nineteenth-century German philosophy. It’s true that the Russian Orthodox Church, in particular, is tolerant if not favourable to all of this. What this Church cannot stand is Rome, Peter, union with the Church as established by Our Lord. This hardness of the heart is a difficult thing to move, especially as its mind is now filled and occupied as well, with the detritus of modern Western philosophy. The combination of materially traditional things (which we all like) and the false philosophies of the Enlightenment West make some Westerners who can no longer understand what the Catholic Church is, feel “at home” in a Church like the Russian Orthodox Church; the smell and bells make them “sure” that their Gnosticism, esoterism, “mysticism” etc., really does have a connection with the early Church. How wrong. The Russian Orthodox Church worships with the Catholic rituals it took with it into exile, but thinks with the mind of Enlightenment philosophy.
Well said, dear Miguel Cervantes – “Creation is not the Creator.” To expand . . .
Yes: this highly liminal, temporary universe of space-time/energy-matter is NOT the creator, it is NOT The Kingdom of GOD; it is NOT The Glorious New Jerusalem; it is NOT the Way, the Truth, and the Life; it is NOT The Holy Spirit of GOD.
In the light of all that, that IS permanent, perfect, good, & holy, our universe is a negation. Thus it has strong affinities with Hell, the final nothingness.
Yet, it is the scientific stage for an infinite range of awesome impossibilities. GOD’s miracle-working Presence can be discerned everywhere. And, preminently in the saving act of Jesus Christ. As Saint Paul wrote to the Romans [1:20]:
“Ever since GOD created the world His everlasting power & Deity – however invisible – have been there for the mind to see in the things He has made.”
In Romans 1:25 Saint Paul confirms what you wrote, dear Miguel:
“. . they have given up divine truth for a lie and have worshipped & served creatures instead of The Creator, who is blessed forever.”
Today, far too many theologians & philosophers have, scientistically, surrendered the Scholastic’s capacity to embrace both:
1. the Glory of GOD revealed throughout our temporary universe that is NOT GOD;
2. the WORD OF GOD revealing the permanent HOLY TRINITY of GOD to whom all the miracles of this universe beckon us.
Howcome so many clever Catholics have forgotten to be in the world but not of it?
Ever seeking to hear & lovingly follow The Lamb of GOD; blessings from marty
Dr. Rice. Thanks for your comment. To be clear, the distinction between the world and God does not mean creation or matter is opposed to the divine. Just that it is not the same thing. What God made is good and can lead to God – as you say -but, as Chesterton wrote, nature is not our mother, she is our sister. I would add, nor is she a bad step-sister.
Nicely put, dear Miguel Cervantes.
Let’s be plain, though:
It’s the human soul, able to freely choose good or evil, that qualifies us to see ourselves as ‘in GOD’s image’. When a person resolve to use all their powers to freely choose the goodness GOD – as shown by our LORD Jesus Christ & His Apostles – we qualify as being in GOD’s likeness; as GOD’s children.
Why I mention this is because the universe, our galaxy, the solar system, planet Earth, the waters, atmosphere, lands, the biosphere & all its organisms – none of it, nothing in nature, is in the image of GOD.
Is it not highly misleading for those like Saint Francis, our beloved C. K. Chesterton, Teilhard de Chardin, etc. to gratuitously bestow an equivalent, personhood status on nature. Many theologians and mystics have followed this path of semi-paganism.
It is highly alluring!
The fact is that nature is NOT a person, neither a nice sister nor a nasty one. GOD has specifically designed ever-changing nature to be impersonal & liminal – available to be used either for good or for evil, and thus to reveal the heart of the choosers.
Some (who should know better) dodge that cold reality by claiming nature was sanctified by the Incarnation, Life & Teachings, Sacrificial Death & Resurrection of our LORD Jesus Christ. They are often heretics who preach unitarianism and/or universalism. They blithely set aside definitive post-Ascencion, Holy Spirit-inspired Apostolic teachings, such as:
“We know that we are GOD’s children, and that the whole world (holos kosmos) lies under the power of the evil one.”
1 John 5:19
“Little children, you are from GOD, & have conquered them; for the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
1 John 4:4
“Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with GOD.”
James 4:4
“But when we are judged by The LORD, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with he world.”
1 Corinthians 11:32
“What does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?”
Luke 9:25
“Jesus answered – ‘My Kingdom is not of this world – – My Kingdom is not from here.”
John 18:36
“But by the same Word the present heavens & earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the godless.”
2 Peter 3:7
“Then I saw a New Heaven & a New Earth for the first heaven & the first earth had passed away . .”
Revelation 21:1
This ever-changing, doom-destined universe & world are ethically ambivalent, so we humans can be free to chose GOD’s way in Christ.
They are our temporary home, with many features revealing the Glory of GOD, & many features revealing the horrors of Hell; an amphoteric, impersonal reality.
The mature believer focusses on King Jesus Christ’s Kingdom, that is not of this compromised world; it is only known in The Holy Spirit.
To cherish even a trace of ‘this world worship’ lacks understanding and may even be treachery towards GOD.
Let the reader pay attention!
Let those who teach the Apostolic Catholic faith be careful to teach the truth.
Always seeking to hear & lovingly follow King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
I’d like to mention, dear Miguel, that the Scriptural understanding of what this ever-changing, temporary natural world is, and why GOD sustains it, does not excuse the scandalous abuses of nature that have accompanied the Industrial Revolution & the Technological Revolution.
It is a false dichotomy to assume that knowledge of the impersonal character of nature causes the abuse of nature; as if the proper Catholic Christian focus on eternal spiritual realities renders us of no earthly use!
Knowing that materiality came from nothing and will return to nothing is NOT a licence for us to have used nature in the grossly irresponsible & destructive way that we have been & still are doing.
In my case, I don’t have even a trace of ‘nature-worship’ or any belief that the world is ‘enchanted’, yet my doctoral students & I have contributed substantial pro-environmental, practical, ecologically-sustainable, pro-human discoveries & methodologies.
As a child of GOD, I’m responsible to respect GOD’s material provison, especially in regard to the needs of other people & of future generations.
Canonically, it’s a serious sin, even fatal, to worship the environment as a sentient or enchanted being.
Canonically, it’s a holy virtue to care for nature as the GOD-given venue for human life & the locus for the right-ethical choice-making that enables some of us to become GOD’s eternal children.
Both extremes are in the wrong:
careless exploitation as much as as reverent sanctification.
What’s needed today is REALISTIC APPRECIATION & HUMANITARIAN UTILIZATION; never nature worship!
Ever in the love of King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Dr. Rice. I didn’t mean to attack the spiritual world per se, just to point out that only personhood associated with the spirit is capable of evil. As you say, the material has no personhood in itself. I’m not sure who these mystics are that you mention who believe such a thing. Saint Francis and Chesterton certainly didn’t. The material world can evoke God as its creator, it can be a beautiful or dangerous thing, but it’s a morally neutral thing; stage props for the human drama. That’s all.
I must admit to being a bit surprised at a Catholic publication giving positive space to a divorced man who has fled from his family responsibilities to live abroad as a mouthpiece to a foreign government.
Rod Dreher did not “flee his family responsibilities.” His wife initiated divorce proceedings while he was on a foreign trip and his old home in Louisiana is lost to him.
I was reviewing the book–not the man–and regard your comment as improper and offensive. Sometime I ought to do a piece on divorced saints. And, by the way, how to you feel about Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and other public figures? Should CWR avoid mentioning them, too?
I believe Ronald Reagan was also divorced by his wife, not the other way around.
A little charity goes a long way Mr. David.
David B: As you may or may not know, anyone who is married as a member of the Catholic Church remains married to his or her spouse until death do them part. What often takes place, and what Mr. and Mrs. Dreher have is a secular divorce, or a divorce recognized by the State and perhaps other institutions as well, but never by the Catholic Church.
As for those who disingenuously choose to make Dreher appear to be the victim of the secular divorce that his wife initiated while Dreher was merely on a trip to a foreign country, Dreher himself wrote the following in the American Conservative at the time the secular divorce was initiated:
“Some of you will have intuited that given the amount of time I have spent living in Budapest this past year, things have not been well for me at home. You were right.”
“It pains me more than I can say to announce that my wife recently filed a petition of divorce, and I have agreed unreservedly to her request for a mutual, and amicable, parting. While this will come as a great shock to my readers, it will not surprise those who know us best. We are both exhausted from nine years of excruciating struggle to save this marriage.”
“There is plenty of blame on both sides. We will have the rest of our lives to think about that.”
However, the “divorce” that was initiated by Rod Dreher and recognized by the Church is his “divorce” from the Catholic Church known more officially as apostasy from the Catholic Church, and it this “divorce” in and of itself that is a great danger to his soul. In addition, his book contains a favorable review of his apostasy and praise of Eastern Orthodoxy, yet only one person in the comments has pointed this out.
Pray for Rod Dreher and his wife as well, but stay away from his book that promotes in part his apostasy and praise of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Dear Miguel, we’re in general concurrence. Yet, perhaps one could say more about your: “In the Catholic view, the world is a good thing, a creation of God.”
‘Ethical Encounter Theology’ explains that the principle divinely-given goodness of the world, with all its perfections & imperfections, is in its efficacy in enabling freely-chosen distinction between persons who love GOD, and persons who do not. That eternal distinction is what survives when the world is dissolved – see 2 Peter 3:11.
The simplistic claim that: “God created the world, ipso facto it is good!” is rampant today, even from our pope and from far too many teachers of spirituality & theology.
GOD created all things & that includes the devil & numerous other fallen angel/demons. Not only did GOD create them but GOD sustains them on a moment-by-moment basis. In other words, GOD could eliminate evil spirits but, for the moment, does not. Ethical Encounter Theology essays a logical meaning for that much ignored truth.
It’s a tragic thing to read a well-known Catholic parishioner state: “GOD made me a homosexual and that is therefore good!” In that case we might expect child molesters, thieves & robbers, blasphemers, idol-worshippers, adulterers, mafia, freemasons, multiple murders, satanists, witches to claim the justifiction of divine approval. You’ll notice, I’m sure, how this is the road to heretical universalism which at heart sees little point in Christ’s Incarnation & His ministry of righteous belief & behavior.
Such a way of thinking is only possible for those who set aside the Apostolic witness of The New Testament, the charter of our New Covenant with GOD.
Sadly, that often characterizes today’s utterances from Rome & from many cardinals & bishops. A duplicitous situation that bodes ill for our Church’s future.
Facing up to the evil in the world is a responsibility of every Catholic cleric & lay.
Ever in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
The much loved Fr Eric Doyle, O.F.M., who died from cancer in 1984, did a comparison of the ‘Canticle of the Three Young Men’ in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, with St Francis’ ‘Canticle to the Sun’, and with de Chardin’s ‘Hymn of Matter’.
To me the comparison is salutary in highlighting the semi-paganistic, nature-personalizing perspectives of Francis and Teilhard, compared to the Canticle author’s single-hearted call of all things to worship GOD. The words of Francis & Teilhard bestow praise on natural objects, the words of Daniel exclusively praise GOD.
‘The Song of the Three Young Men’ in the book of Daniel chapter 3
“All things the Lord has made, bless the Lord . . .
Sun and moon ! bless the Lord . . .
Stars of heaven! bless the Lord . . .
Winds! all bless the Lord . . .
Everything that grows on the earth! bless the Lord.”
‘The Canticle of Brother Sun’ by Saint Francis
“Be praised, my Lord with all Thy creatures above all Sir Brother Sun …
Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth.”
‘Hymn of Matter’ by Teilhard de Chardin
“Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations:
you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards of measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God …
Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God . . .”
——————
To me the full Old Testament canticle is far more authentic than the nature-personalizing & object-praising words of Francis & Teilhard –
We might reflect on how very much theology has lost!
‘Canticle of the Three Youths’ Catholic Online prayer version
“Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord;
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord;
You heavens, bless the Lord;
All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord.
All you hosts of the Lord; bless the Lord.
Sun and moon, bless the Lord;
Stars of heaven, bless the Lord.
Every shower and dew, bless the Lord;
All you winds, bless the Lord.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord;
Cold and chill, bless the Lord.
Dew and rain, bless the Lord;
Frost and cold, bless the Lord.
Ice and snow, bless the Lord;
Nights and days, bless the Lord.
Light and darkness bless the Lord;
Lightning and clouds, bless the Lord.
Let the earth bless the Lord;
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Mountains and hills, bless the Lord
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.
You springs, bless the Lord;
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord.
You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord;
All you birds of the air, bless the Lord.
All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord;
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
You sons of men, bless the Lord;
O Israel, bless the Lord.
Priests of the Lord, bless the Lord;
Servants of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord;
Holy men of humble heart, bless the Lord.
Ananias, Azarias, Misael, bless the Lord;
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Let us bless the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost;
Let us praise and exalt God above all forever.
Blessed are you in the firmament of heaven;
Praiseworthy and glorious forever.”
Hello there, Dr. Rice. Well, you’re discussing the old issue, the problem of evil. It does not change the fact that everything made by God is good. Evil is made by persons, whether men or angels. The world can’t “do” evil because it can’t do anything, not having intelligence and will. Ecclesiastes 7 says”God made man right”. Original sin was man’s “creation”. This is why natural law, based on nature per se, should determine society. Unfortunately, Conservatism rejects this, proposing human convention instead.
The Canticle of the Sun (perhaps apocryphal) only metaphorically attributes personality to the material and animal world, in the way people refer to a ship. If there had been any doubt about that, it’s hard to see how he could have been canonised. The constant appeals to the Fathers of the Church, to “mysticism” and to the Orthodox Churches, in order to base the new Gnosticism/paganism is nauseating.
The Russian Orthodox Church, in particular, is very far from what it believed only four centuries ago. It’s theology and philosophy is largely derived from post-Enlightenment German philosophy, through Slavophilism, Dostoevsky, Soloviev, Berdiaev etc. These quintessentially “modern” streams of thought seek to strike roots in patrology and subjectivist “mysticism”. But we should perceive this at once; it’s exactly what our Modernism did and continues to do. In the Catholic Church, though, at all levels there is a growing pushback against this Modernism’s pseudo-archaism (which has even a High-Church smells and bells version of Gnosticism through Peter Kwasniewski, Robert Lazu Kmita etc).
The Russian Orthodox Church is now entirely at the mercy of civil society and its government. It meekly countenances these Gnostic/German Enlightenment streams of thought and promotes it in the West. People like Dreher have absolutely no control over the sinister places such thought is leading.
Many thanks, dear Miguel Cervantes for illuminating the erroneous theological streams in Eastern Orthodoxy. They & Rod Dreher seem to be right off the rails!
However, you did not really address the written & published evidence.
I mean:
Daniel’s three youths position themselves as believers, superior to the things of nature, qualified to command all the things of nature to bow & worship GOD.
In stark contrast: Francis & Teilhard position themselves under the things of nature, bowing in admiration, as if to gods. Pretty much as polytheistic pagans always have.
I note your quandry: “If there had been any doubt about that, it’s hard to see how he (Francis of Asissi) could have been canonised (by the Church).”
Yet, we must conceed Francis was canonised largely because of his awesome founding works and his rebuilding of many churches. In other words for wonderfully maximizing the structure of the Church (whilst personally embodying minimalism). His semi-pagan theological understandings just came along as a rider!
Are there any of our numerous saints whose theological writings are all authentically Apostolic? Canonisation is surely not a seal of theological infallibility . . .
If our Church follows the example of the whole-hearted worship of GOD alone, set by Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, & Azariah (and Jesus & His Apostles & most of our Saints) we’ll stay safe on the rails.
St Francis & Teilhard de Chardin jumped those rails. If we follow their semi-pagan doxologies we’ll blunder deeper & deeper into the wilderness of error, subjecting ourselves to whatever dwells there.
This is not just theory – in my own parish & archdiocese many clergy & lay are subject.
The evidence is clear; we shouldn’t ignore it out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. Truth is always paramount for us – 2 Corinthians 13:8.
In Christ Jesus, let’s recognise ourselves as spiritually above the other things of nature, well qualified to command them all to bow & worship GOD.
Ever in the love of The Lamb; blessings from marty
Thanks Marty.
I agree with you – not everything every saint has written is ideal. We have to take the Church’s guidance on such matters. I’m sure, however, that Saint Francis only spoke metaphorically about the material world. Like Hildegard of Bingen, he has been claimed by the Gnostic no-hopers as a patron. It’s hilarious to hear the mad interpretations given to her text by certain feminists.
Thanks Miguel, for your many contributions that provide a greater understanding of some problematic elements of Rod Dreher’s writings that are also recognized by Dr. Rice and L Slono. Some clarity is needed regarding Church teaching on apostasy, heresy, schism, and salvation, especially in light of the misleading and theologically erroneous claims made by Kathryn Gallantry in her unfortunate defense of Rod Dreher in her comments above.
In Vat II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, we read the following:
[The Council relies on sacred Scripture and Tradition in teaching that this pilgrim Church is necessary for Salvation…….
…it would be impossible for men to be saved if they refused to enter or remain in the Catholic Church, unless they were unaware that her foundation by God through Jesus Christ made it a necessity.
Full incorporation in the society of the Church belongs to those who are in possession of the Holy Spirit, accept its order in its entirety with all its established means of salvation, and are united to Christ, who rules it by the agency of the Supreme Pontiff and the Bishops, within its visible framework. The bonds of their union are the profession of faith, the sacraments, ecclesiastical government and fellowship. Despite incorporation in the Church, that man is not saved who fails to persevere in charity, and remains in the bosom of the Church “with his body” but not “with his heart.” All the Church’s children must be sure to ascribe their distinguished rank to Christ’s special grace and not to their own deserts. If they fail to correspond with that grace in thought, word and deed, so far from being saved, their judgment will be the more severe.]
Canon 751 of the Catholic Church states that [Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.]
Where people like Kathryn Gallantry get confused regarding apostasy is the term “Christian faith,” but in the context of the Church and Church governance, “Christian faith” is synonymous with Catholic Faith. If it wasn’t, then the canonical penalty section I am about to quote from would make no sense.
[Canon 1364: an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication;]
The “faith” referred to above is also understood as the Catholic faith. Otherwise, a guilty party could not incur a latae sententiae excommunication (automatic). One is excommunicated in any form from the Catholic Church; not from any Christian denomination.
So contrary to what Kathryn Gallantry and others may wish for a wrongly believe, Rod Dreher’s actions are absolutely soul-endangering based on Church teaching and Church law, some of which I cite above. Telling him that his sinful actions are not soul-endangering even though they involve serious/grave matter is not helpful to him. Pray for him and tell him the truth instead of declaring that his salvation is not in any danger despite his sinful actions involving serious matter.
Thanks, Tom, for your discussion of the Church and the vital importance of being in it. As you know, the Church has always has lots of people in it who had ideas on religion that were far from right, usually people who didn’t better, but often not. The funny thing is that, for such people, it’s actually very hard to “fall out of” the Church.
Schism, refusing to recognise the Pope and the visible Church established by Our Lord, is the Royal Road out of the Church. Unlike the worst ideas and immorality, it works every time, and instantly. It’s quite appalling for those involved. AS for those who, hundreds of years later, find themselves in schism through no fault of their own in the Orthodox Churches, I’m quite prepared to accept their edifying lives (just as I accept the edifying lives of so many genuine people, whether Lutheran, Amish, Muslim etc), but this does not mean I am impressed by their religious ideas. Those who initiate and join such tragic separations from the Church, as you point out, are an entirely different matter.
In connection with this, it’s alarming to note how many of those in the Ecclesia Dei circles of traditionalists are now toying with schism, merely because of the problematic positions of the current Pope. Led By Peter Kwasniewski and his colleague Sebastian Morello, many want to change the constitution of the Church, and erect a new ordinary episcopal jurisdiction which is to be autonomous from the Pope. They wish to create structures from which to “impeach” the Pope. They are also heavily influenced by the false mysticism and Gnosticism evident in Dreher’s book. I am a traditional Catholic, but I can’t recognise tradition in the high church modernism espoused in many Ecclesia Dei circles.
Saint Augustine responded to Faustus the Manichaean:
“If you believe what you like in the Gospels and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe but yourself.”
The ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’ avoids that error by citing ‘The New Testament’ more than 3,500 times. Built on that Rock, our house will never fall.
Amidst all the strange novelties & aberations in the Church, even in Rome (a bit like a chaotic marketplace in any large African town) there’s always been a core of humble clergy & lay who hear & follow the ever-living Jesus Christ, who they recognize as the same today as He was to His Apostles, who recorded His life & teachings in The New Testament. The Life & Teachings of GOD-with-us, no less!
In love with that Rock, they’ve little concern for the diabolic tumult of eternally irresolvable factionalism & aberent ideologies, theologies, & ecclesiologies.
How can we minister to those locked in such self-opinionated conflicts?
Maybe by reminding them all of GOD’s promise.
Assuring them that those who obey the Apostolic witness to King Jesus Christ will experience His Peace and Unity with GOD, surpassing all human understanding.
By The Father’s will, King Jesus Christ waits for us with open arms . . .
Philosophy helps to discipline and direct wonder and protects it from getting equated with the physical creation and social order and from being made subjected on them.
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2024/09/19/wonder-of-wonders/
Thanks Miguel. I am only a bit familiar with Kwasnieski, and your mention is the first I’ve heard of Sebastian Morello. Please point me to some articles or other works of these people that support your claims. The only things I know involving Kwasnieski is his support for the traditional Latin Mass due in part to a background in Liturgical Music, and also his support for tradition in general. I have not heard that he favors some kind of schism or Gnosticism, so I look forward to what you can share in this regard. Personally, I like the way Benedict XVI arranged for the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine Mass to both be used without unnecessary restrictions, and I hope such will again be the reality. I have always attended the Novus Ordo most of the time, but on occasion I did attend and enjoy a Tridentine Mass, but now it’s nowhere to be found anywhere near where I live.
Thanks Tom. Your question needs a proper answer. I’ll try to keep it short, but the nature of Gnosticism and esoterism precludes clear manifestos. It’s not hard to find masses of evidence, though (these are only examples). Kwasniewsi has become the figure of reference for English-speaking Ecclesia Dei circles, through which he promotes his reinvention of traditional Catholicism. He’s not as open about his esoterism as some of his associates (like Morello and Lazu Kmita), but these people now form a determined group who have unfettered access to English speaking Catholic traditionalism (except that associated with the SSPX, which is not interested in his theories).
The link joining and empowering the group is Angelico Press, an openly Gnostic esoteric organisation, which recently published Tomberg’s “Meditations on the Tarot” (which praised luciferians, Madame Blavastsky, Gnostics and Guenon). Kwasniewsky declares that “Angelico Press continues to build its empire as the premiere publisher of… intellectually rigorous traditional Catholic books”. Kwasniewsky praises the Gnostic Robert Lazu Kmita. Kwasniewsky also praised Kmita’s three-article series, The Mystagogical Option, where Kmita openly supports Sebastian Morello’s call for the crisis in the Church to be “healed” by “magic”. Kwasniewsky has repeatedly praised (Angelico Press author) Roger Buck’s works on the Rorate Coeli website, the pro-SP New Liturgical Movement site. His own site links Buck directly. Yet the first thing viewers see on Buck’s site is a profuse defence of Tomberg’s Meditations etc.
Here is Kmita in “The Remnant”, defending his esoteric (Martinist) concept of Eden as heaven, recoverable through human efforts (he writes about this theme often in various publications: https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/7150-holy-baptism-the-gate-of-the-kingdom-of-heaven
Here, Kmita pushes the same idea courtesy of Una Voce:
https://issuu.com/gregoriusmagnus/docs/gads1743_gregorius_magnus_15_summer_2023_web
Kmita values shamanism and the kabbala as sources of “occult knowledge” which has been “lost”. Here is Kmita on “pyramids”, defending a host of pagans and gnostics:
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/the-unseen-world-the-mystery-of-the-pyramids/
Morello and Kwasniewski conducted a long discussion in the pages of One Peter Five (another publication favouring such tendencies). In this discussion, Morelo supported the Tememos institution (which supports Buddhism). Morello predicts, “the works of Jean Hani, Valentin Tomberg, Jean Borella… will be of the utmost importance for the re-evangelisation of the world.” This advertisement for Tomberg’s work praising satanists is answered by Kwasniewski: “you have sent me so many words of wisdom. I am in your debt”. Then Morello says (referring to pagan human sacrifice) “I believe humans are directed by their nature towards priestly sacrifice of… human victims”. Kwasniewski’s commentary: “Thank you for further thoughts”, no comment on human sacrifice: https://onepeterfive.com/friends-seeking-a-common-understanding-letters-on-grace-vocations-and-the-modern-church/
Here is a sample of Morello’s ideas.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/reviews/the-emergent-reality-sophianic-initiation-through-michael-martins-poems/
Morello is connected to Dreher. Here he is praising him (and Tomberg): https://europeanconservative.com/articles/reviews/a-christian-call-to-re-enchant-the-world/
This group couples its esoteric ideas with an obsession with changing the constitution of the Church. Robert Kmita, in The Remnant (29/1/24), teaches that Peter is not the “Rock”, and takes up the Lutheran doctrine on this point. In The Remnant (4/7/24), Lazu Kmita writes that Saint Thomas Aquinas and “one of the well-known Catholic interpretations of the passage from Matthew 16:18”, and “numerous saints”, all erred – “Saint Thomas was wrong”. The visible Church will disappear “The Saviour’s statement that the “gates of hell” will not overcome the Church can only mean one thing… the faith [will remain only] in those unknown and disregarded true Christians”. But an “invisible Church” in people’s “hearts” is a Protestant concept, not the Church which Vatican I defined would always be represented by the See of Rome.
Mr. T.S. Flanders, editor of One Peter Five, 30/8/23, trashes Vatican One. He attacks Tridentine, and Thomistic Catholicism, which he claims is represented by Archbishop Lefebvre, for failing to properly include what he calls “Greek” synodal practice. One Peter Five says the “synodal way” of the German bishops is a “rehash” of Vatican One. Tim Flanders and Kwasniewsy source their revolution in Church structure to Vatican II, using episcopal collegiality as an excuse to establish an alternative source of jurisdiction in the Church, countering that of the Pope. It resembles a combination of the old Conciliarism and Gallicanism.
Kwasniewsky says the Church needs to be exorcised” from “the spirit of Vatican One”. He confuses hyperpapalism with Catholic doctrine and the founding structure of the Church, which he calls ultramontanism and now wants to reform: https://onepeterfive.com/rethinking-papacy/
There is a “left wing” Low Church modernism which we are all aware of. We now see the beginnings of “High Church” modernism. Its patron saints are de Lubac and von Balthasar (who wrote a glowing preface to Tomberg’s “Meditations”). Its phobias are Thomism Vatican I, Trent and the Counter-reformation.
Peter Kwasniewski’s Os Justi organisation is now publishing Morello’s book, “Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries”. The “Anglo” Ecclesia Dei movement is in serious trouble.
Many thanks for your eye-opening research, dear Miguel Cervantes.
Am hoping you can work with our beloved Carl Olson & CWR team to give us a full article on those who are working to fuse our Catholic faith with demon-inspired beliefs & practices.
“Let there be Light!”
Ever in the love of King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Thanks very much. I’m sorry it was so long. There’s no short answer because these are people who claim to be orthodox and shy away from terms that clearly describe what they’re on about. There’s no alternative to going through what they actually say. I’m concerned about this issue and have been following it for a while.
Please don’t apologise, Miguel. Rather do more of the same, please.
Your careful research is bearing good fruit. Well done!
A contribution that’s Apostolically authentic – “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” Ephesians 5:11
Not pointing fingers, could be a case of 2 sides both going to excess. Should a Pope try to condition all future popes into his personality starting with today’s bishops? And make a big splash in advance for all the devils to notice straight off, those who are designated the “sad kind of saint”?
This would be one of those cases of wrong discussion overtaking the kind author’s essay limelight!