In the wake of the debacle over Cardinal-Designate Americo Aguiar’s remarks that World Youth Day (WYD) 2023 doesn’t intend to “convert” any youth because its goal was rather some kind of amorphous exercise in “fraternity,” somebody apparently sent out a “Lisbon, We Have a Problem” alert. The usual defensive mechanisms sprang into place: whenever a hierarch today utters something utterly off-the-wall, there follows efforts to walk back those off-the-wall remarks.
It started with Bishop Aguiar himself. He certainly never meant to suggest that WYD shouldn’t bring youth—even non-Catholic youth—to “God.” No, the head of WYD 2023 and auxiliary bishop of Lisbon hopes all young people have a positive “experience of God” there.
But that “God” has a name. And that God revealed Himself and spoke His Word, who is “Jesus Christ.” Why the allergy to the Name (cf Acts 5:40-41)?
Sure, it looks great to speak of an “experience of God,” but I fear the expression is just so many more soapsuds in the eyes of the faithful, offering a sop while advancing an agenda. Frankly, I think Aguiar’s July 6th comments were quite accurate in terms of his thinking: while organized by the Church, this is a gathering of world youth (most of them admittedly Catholic) assembled to celebrate “fraternity” and “diversity” among those who believe in Somebody or Something. It might be G-d, it might be Allah; for non-believers it might be “social justice” or even “the Force be with you.” Then they will all go home, appreciative of religious diversity, with the added benefit of knowing there are still so many folks who recognize something bigger than themselves (but don’t be “triumphalist” about that).
That’s why, until I hear an explicitly Christocentric focus from Aguiar and Pope Francis, I’m not buying the bishop’s “clarification” nor modifying my argument that we are watching the dumbing down of WYD.
The next line-of-defense is that Bishop Aguiar was quoted out of context and, therefore, willfully misunderstood: all he opposed was “active proselytism.”
Three responses: (1) Except as a bugaboo in Pope Francis’s mind, who can cite any example in recent decades of an event run under explicit Catholic institutional auspices that involved outright, aggressive proselytism? (2) Since Aguiar is regarded as something of an ecclesial media spokesman and celebrity in Portugal, why are we to believe he was just innocently unaware of how his remarks might be taken? (3) After ten years of this pontificate, why are there still constant “communications” problems? Might the problem lie in the confused theology behind it?
Two essays on the “Where Peter Is” site attempt to spin the controversy. Claire Domingues and Pedro Gabriel would have us believe that Aguiar was really just channeling his inner-Josef Ratzinger. They quote from Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Christmas address to the Curia, in which he noted that interreligious dialogue “does not aim at conversion but understanding.”
But WYD is not a gathering of ecumenists or practitioners of interreligious dialogue. It is a gathering of primarily Catholic youth. I expect most people (including most parents paying big bucks to send their children there) expected the focus to be Catholic: explicitly and unabashedly.
Domingues and Gabriel note Aguiar “oversees the working group of interreligious dialogue” for WYD. They were the folks, they note, who “invite people of all religions to the WYD.” That’s nice—but it still should not fundamentally alter the Catholic-centric nature of an event for young people.
Aguiar’s apologists might say that I misconstrue them: He’s not altering anything. Bishop Aguiar knows interreligious dialogue is but one part of a bigger WYD. Look at the WYD website and see all the Christological references! He was just addressing interreligious dialogue within a broader picture.
However, I am unconvinced. I think Aguiar let the cat out of the bag: their image of today’s Catholic focuses on “fraternal understanding” and “dialogue” that should lead us to this kind of watered down Catholicism that now passes as “witnessing” to Christ. I think most Catholics expect a more robust witness than this anemic, diluted, and essentially “anonymous” Catholicism.
I see a parallel in this interreligious argument to the kind of spin used by atheists in their arguments to drive religion out of American schools. It goes as follows: if we acknowledged, even in an ecumenical, theologically-scrubbed-and-disinfected graduation ceremony prayer, that “God” might have something to do with the blessings these young people enjoy at this moment, one atheist somewhere in the crowd would feel “excluded.” The Constitution’s protections of freedom of religion, therefore, should be used to drive religion out of the event.
The parallels are “witness” reduced to silent “attraction” in a contemporary Church seemingly more obsessed with “welcome” than “Gospel.”
Let WYD welcome “people of all religions.” But they should also expect WYD is a “big-C” Catholic event.
Gabriel separately takes up a bolder line of argument. Pushing back against criticisms of Aguiar’s remarks as evidence of theological superficiality, Gabriel wants to convince us that Aguiar (and Francis) have in fact forged a deeper theological insight that brings “evangelization” and “dialogue” into a new synthesis. Aguiar’s WYD “vision” just happens to give it expression.
The argument is that there is a “tension” between “identity” and “openness” which, if we but resort to the overcoming of “polar opposition” by pursuing resolution on a “higher plane,” perhaps within the “vertices” of Francis’s “cultural polyhedron,” all will be well.
Got that?
Gabriel even suggests the roots of such thinking are to be found in Romano Guardini. I think they are, in fact, a confused rehash of the worst of Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis philosophy. In any event, what seems to emerge, in my judgment, is a kind of watered down, anemic “anonymous Catholicism,” one deluded enough to believe that people are actually attracted by its “non-proselytizing” silence, presumably finding Catholicism somewhere amidst those pale, pastel, and non-descript colors.
If you want an example of this thinking at work, we’re told that Querida Amazonia already addressed this in practice. Quoting Francis:
In an Amazonian region characterized by many religions, we believers need to find occasions to speak to one another and to act together for the common good and the promotion of the poor. This has nothing to do with watering down or concealing our deepest convictions….
Really? The promoters of Pachamama tripped over each other, unable to tell us whether it was a pregnant woman, a fertility symbol or even fertility deity, a local Mary, an idol, or a little bit of all of that (but let’s not sweat the small stuff or get into a “moral panic”). If that’s not “watering down” Catholic identity or even faith, but rather exemplifies what “resolution on a higher plane” looks like in the Francis “cultural polyhedron,” then we really need to consider whether such thinking and methods contribute anything but unnecessary confusion.
Gabriel argues that this vision finds expression in Fratelli tutti. Far from being Aguiar’s substitution of “fraternity” for an explicit Christological focus to WYD, it’s the logical outcome of that thought, whose implications the bishop was simply spelling out.
Both authors chose to send me a meme expressing their agreement with that line-of-thinking. It depicted a young lady, in a job interview-like context. She is presented with two cards: “applying the principles of Fratelli tutti”and “witnessing to Christ.” She’s asked to “find the differences between the two pictures.” Her response: “They’re the same picture.”
No, they’re not.
Yes, love of neighbor is demanded by love of God. But love of God comes first and can even stand in opposition to human relationships (Lk 12:51-53). Furthermore, to conflate the “principles of Fratelli tutti” with the Second Greatest Commandment seems a somewhat arrogant apotheosis of the encyclical. In any event, the two subsets are not equal and certainly not coextensive: if “witnessing to Christ” is not self-evidently the bigger, more encompassing category, the young lady needs to get to an oculist.
I maintain that starting from the level of human fraternity as a prelude or even parallel to witness to Christ, much less to reach towards God, is a futile—or even false—point-of-departure. The person who begins on a human level starts from a fallen nature, incapable on its own to reach God. It’s rather prone to turning from God. Man’s inchoate awareness of his lack of supernatural charity—“I don’t do the good I want to do, but instead do the evil I don’t want to do” (Rom 7:19)—makes him aware of his spiritual impotence. He may “love” his neighbor, perhaps because he wants to be nice, maybe because it’s useful, or even because it expresses his general principles and convictions. But, without Christ, all those motives are frangible. He needs to recognize that gap. He needs Christ to make even his simple human fraternity supernaturally fruitful.
It is the tendency to obscure that explicit Christological focus that I find untenable in all these attempts to talk around “fraternity,” “evangelization.” “dialogue,” and “understanding.” I don’t see mass evangelization emerging from a “witnessing to Christ” that is reduced primarily to “attraction” through unarticulated example. What distinguishes to others our so-called “silently attracting Catholic” from just “being a nice person?” Gabriel denies that one follows from the other. I think in both practice and the real world, he’s simply wrong.
(Let me suggest that exploration of the influences of Karl Rahner on this whole line of thought needs further investigation. The “anonymous Catholicism” emerging from the “higher resolution” of “identity” and “dialogue” seems rooted in Rahner’s “anonymous Christianity.” The primacy of “fraternity” seems connected to Rahner’s debatable thesis about the antecedent necessity of love of neighbor to love of God. Finally, Rahner’s efforts to import into theology the worst of 19th-century German philosophy—including his “supernatural existential” that in pastoral practice essentially denies original sin’s effects—seems to color these efforts at synthesis).
Pope St. John Paul II launched WYD on the model of his own work as a university professor with young people, not just in the classroom but on his famous hikes and kayak trips. Amidst the stifling ideological secularism of communism, he offered a clear and explicit Catholic vision, not excluding anybody but also not tailoring his message to “soften” its Catholic edges. Aguiar’s apologists may deny he’s softening things, but in the past 60 years Catholics have seen far too many examples of Catholic “accompaniment” of modernity that led Catholics down one-way streets to secularization. That engagement did not lead to the latent religious butterfly emerging from the caterpillars of modernity, but to empty pews. That’s why Catholics rightly reject Siren songs of WYD as “a time when the cultural polyhedron will shine through all the youth present there.” Catholics want Christ shining: pure, unadulterated, 200 proof.
Bishop Robert Barron summed up well how Pope St. John Paul would likely have reacted to such dissembling: “… if you had told him that the true purpose of the event was to celebrate difference and make people everyone feel comfortable with whom they are, and that you had no interest in converting anyone to Christ, you would have gotten a look to stop a train” (emphasis added).
Hopefully, it is one that derails the “cultural polyhedron” fraternal express.
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Spot on. Yes, Cardinal-elect Aguiar, actions speak louder than your spin! Dr Grondelski, relieved to see Bishop Barron is with you on this .
Agree, Cathy, another extraordinarily well-written piece by Dr. Grondelski. And also share your relief that Bishop Barron stepped up with his welcome comment about how Pope St JP II would have reacted to Bishop Aguiar’s statement. Unfortunately, I doubt the Bishop will receive that kind of reaction from Pope Francis. Hope I’m wrong.
Contributors at “Where Peter Is” have slouched down to the level of the National Catholic Reporter. If Francis called on all Catholics to show “mercy” by opening up abortion services at every parish in the world, they would be running articles about where to buy the OR equipment and suction machines.
“Where Peter is” or more to the point, “Where IS Peter?”
Not to be outdone, if we ostensibly need substitute teachers at WYD, my friend Krusty the Clown knows how to synodal with kids. And best of all, he is not Christian! Remember what Lisa Simpson said in her letter home: “”Dear Mom, I no longer fear Hell, because I’ve been to Kamp Krusty.”
Mark, the papal palace is empty. He lives in Martha’s Guesthouse.
Maybe this entire progressive pontificate is summering with the other libs on Martha’s Vineyard.
Boycott of World Youth Day: No Annual Pedophile Clean Up Reports, No World Youth for the Sankt Gallen Perverts. The organiser has stated This Is Not a Catholic Evangelisation event.
Catholics Protect Your Kids from the Sankt Gallen Mafia Perverts 2023. Keep them home, pray rosary for an End to the Apostasy.
Good Parish Priests protect their Parishoners: they Boycott the 2023 Sankt Gallen Mafia Youth Day.
I think trying to engage in intellectual dialogue with heterodox bishops gives far too much credibility to the latter and is a bloody waste of time. We know exactly what theoĺogy these types are trying to promulgate and we’re not havin any of it despite their protestations to the contrary and the denials of their spokesmen.
My advice to parents: Keep your children far away from World Youth Day for the present. Perhaps one day they can return when Catholics once again are sponsoring it. Why bother sending your children to what amounts to nothing more than a Catholic Woodstock and expect their Catholic faith to be deepened?
Lastly, the only thing missing from the telling remarks of Bishop Aguilar was that they were not made during an interview with reporters at the rear of an aircraft.
Study your theology, Deacon! Press statements on Portuguese TV are just pastoral letters. Remarks to reporters in the economy section of aircraft are de fide definata.
consider me anathema sit
Touche, Mr. Grondelski!
I’m starting to think Bishop Aguiar may have done us a favour with his candid comments.
A favor indeed. So what if Bishop Wickham accidentally told the truth by publicly aping the thought of this pontificate? Yes, out of the gate, he exposed himself as a Bactrackist. But at least he is not a Backwardist! And as a former Socialist politician, he was cleaver enough to find rapid promotion in our Church.
He is as fine a fellow as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes Amoris to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even the Anglicans to produce a more valuable prelate.
Well stated Mr. Grondelski.
The papacy of PF is riddled with scandal. He’s lost credibility and credulity with most serious Catholics. At best, he’s merely filling the seat now that a lame duck president might fill. At worst, he’s already emptied the seat of St. Peter and is busy undermining that essential role all while wearing the “costume” of the Pope. Does anyone remember anything doctrinally consistent with his predecessors (JPII and Benedict) that he, himself, has embraced? Other than the usual “we’re-all-too-willing-to-show-our-identity-as-Catholics-doesn’t-matter-as-much-as-our-ability-to-accommodate-man-in-the-“modern”-age” nonsense? It is interesting to contemplate whom this pope views as the enemies of the church. Does he speak of the age-old enemies of the church – the world, the flesh and the devil? He might give an occasional nod to the trickery of the devil but more in passing it seems than anything else. Can you think of a group of people more condemned by this man than Traditional Catholics? Please let that sink in. You, too, should you like your Novus Ordo Mass to remain JUST the Novus Ordo Mass will be shunned as “rigid” and “divisive” just as soon as the novelties from the upcoming sin-nod are implemented. Keep your eyes peeled for the location of your nearest Latin Mass community. That is your bastion of peace and bulwark against the “cra-cra” that, just as sure as I am typing this sentence, is coming YOUR way. Whatever you do DON’T leave the church. Don’t get disillusioned. Salvation is served from the altar – leaving is a NON-STARTER. Deo gratias!
This pontificate is like watching Sally Field accept an Oscar. I’m starting to feel like Al Haig after President Reagan was shot.
Excellent commentary by Grondelski. This bishop needs to be oriented as to his proper role—bringing souls to Christ, not in establishing a friendly secular fraternity.
Amen!!!!!!!!!!!! Lord help us please!
Bishops are human, fragile, and mortal. Moreover bishops are all good and pious people. During the unguarded moments, a Bishop could utter some words that may not be exactly what he wanted to say. As always we should continue to pray for the well being of our bishops.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read or heard of today. Thanks for the laughs.
As a humble member of the flock and led by our pious Deacon, I prefer praying for the good health and well being of bishops.
I’ll leave it to God decide whether I am pious or not.
Doctor C:
Your (regrettable and still retractable) statement “all Bishops are good people” indicates the pathology of clericalism.
You should consider a revised declaration.
Revised declaration:
“Hate the sin – Love the sinner” – was often suggested by Mahatma Gandhi.
The admonition is from St. Augustine. His Letter 211 (c. 424) contains the phrase Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum, which translates roughly to “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” The phrase has become more famous as “love the sinner but hate the sin” or “hate the sin and not the sinner” (the latter form appearing some 1,500 years later in Mohandas Gandhi’s 1929 autobiography).
“Bishops are all good?” St. McCarrick! Are you saying that Catholics worship Bishops? (Mark 10:18). Not even the German Bishops are asking for that. OK, fess up. Are you in the LCs?
Having been involved in pro-life work for half a century, I must have missed all the heroic witness that our “good” bishops have been giving all that time to support our efforts. (Despite my sarcasm, there have been a few.)
But why do we have to pray for collective common sense?
Hmmm, no. Nice try but lukewarm is lukewarm. Clearly so.
Bishops are indeed human like the rest of us. However, they in particular are charged with guarding and guiding the church. They do this by observing catholic tradition and moral norms. I have never heard of Bishops who didnt want converts. IF that is any Bishop’s actual position, they need to RESIGN immediately because they are betraying both the church and the Faithful. All people are NOT the same, no matter how much modern day clap-trap pushes that narrative. For example, the Japanese soldiers in WWII who starved, tortured and murdered unarmed prisoners were indeed NOT on the same moral plane as the allies who did NOT do such things. For todays purposes, people who lets say, worship elephants, do NOT have the same vision of God as we do, as nice as they may be on a personal level. For a BISHOP to lose sight of that is a massive deficiency, a big enough one that again, they should be removed from office. Their role is larger than the average Christian, so is their responsibility.
Then they should utter them in private to an audience of 1 – himself. Not in public.
“The next line-of-defense is that Bishop Aguiar was quoted out of context and, therefore, willfully misunderstood: all he opposed was “active proselytism.”
Bishop Aguiar is himself proselytizing his Freemason beliefs to destroy Christianity.
Did Jesus come to earth to start a fraternity of all beliefs and non-beliefs, or did Jesus come to proselytize Christianity and Eternal Salvation into existence?
John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.
John 6:68
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
John 17:3
Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
“Papal ban of Freemasonry,
Leo XIII “emphasizes that ‘the ultimate and principal aim’ of Masonry ‘was to destroy to its very foundations any civil or religious order established throughout Christendom, and bring about in its place a new order founded on laws drawn out of the entrails of naturalism’.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_ban_of_Freemasonry
EWTN, Wolf in sheep’s clothing
https://youtu.be/ZnKB9NzgD4k
Apparently the purpose of WYD is to infantalize our children (in the same general sense described by Adam DeVille), and groom them to listen to cattle rustlers like the new Cardinal from Portugal.
Just “Exhibit 1001” in the indictment of the unseriousness of the Church establishment, and the vast majority of it’s redundant and self-serving Bishops.
The clergy have one job to do. Teach and defend the faith as always taught and believed, if they cannot do this even on a plane then why should we listen to them at all. Would you trust an accountant who told you it’s ok to be creative when doing your tax return?
I wouldn’t trust an accountant who is not creative. There is a LOT of wiggle room in tax law.
The German contagion. Butt, hey, why not consult synodally with the timeless German icon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?
Said he, “there is nothing more frightful than a bustling ignorance” (1826).
So how do these men even become priests? I thought you had to actually believe in Jesus Christ, the Trinity, etc… to be a priest, bishop, and even pope. Or so I thought! Silly me! So this bishop collects a pay check, lives on our donations from Catholics, and yet does not really believe in Jesus Christ, because if he did, he would be desiring to bring all to Christ. This really ticks me off and it should everyone. He is stealing just like Judas did. Taking money under false pretenses pretending to be a believer. Yet no apostolic visitation, no removal without notice. The injustices perpetrated by those claiming to show God’s mercy is just outrageous. Double standards, inconsistencies, and hypocrisy abounds in Rome!
At the heart of the Eucharistic presence there is an awful, awesome, transcendent silence. It is rare to find a Catholic religious building where any sense of that is to be found. Indeed, it is become officially normative to treat such buildings as meeting halls where some sort of religious «thing» may occasionally occur.
The last thing people of my age need is more bread and circuses dispensed by seemingly quite clueless hierarchs and clerics. The older, the wiser?