From an article in The Boston Globe [Via Ten Reasons]
"It would be hard for any Catholic editor not to say, ‘Well, if this happened to America magazine, perhaps it could happen to others,’ ‘ said the Rev. Pat McCloskey, the editor of St. Anthony Messenger, a 311,000-circulation Franciscan monthly based in Cincinnati.
You know I really don’t believe the Catholic editors at Crisis, This Rock, Catholic World Report, etc are worrying that this will happen to them.
”I’m afraid that a move like this one will cause more and more Catholic thinkers to say that they want to write for publications that are not identified as Catholic and to teach at schools that are not identified as Catholic, because there is more freedom there.’"
So what exactly would be the change? Many modern theologians write for Catholic periodicals that really can’t be identified as Catholic or teach in Catholic schools that can’t really be identified as Catholic. And why if St. Anthony Messenger believes that they are printing a Catholic magazine that they are worried about something similar happening to them?. I think the lady doth protest too much. Obviously they realize that they are have been thinking outside of the box, or really outside of the dox as in orthodox. That is the frustrating part of many of these periodicals like this that I have read. They seem Catholic but it is a Catholicism slightly out of focus and makes your eyes water reading it. They also often have some very solid articles but others seem to dance around orthodoxy and try to both disparage and defend Catholic teaching at the same time. For example reading Sister Joan Chittister’s articles (folks don’t try this at home I am a professional pundit) since the election of Pope Benedict XVI have been really funny in what was not said. You can almost see the restraint waiting to break out in every sentence of what she really feels about it.
Publications such as Commonweal, an influential opinion journal produced by lay Catholics, are less vulnerable to pressure from the Vatican because they are independently incorporated and not controlled by a religious order or diocese. Nonetheless, the editor, Paul Baumann, arrived at work yesterday to find the threatening e-mail from a critic.
”It’s hard to imagine how any church authority can shut down the sorts of debates that thinking Catholics are engaged in," Baumann said. ”What’s most troublesome is that for the ordained, for those theologians who are priests, and for people working in Catholic universities, this will inhibit the honest exchange of views."
I have a soft spot for Commonweal since they previously took the time to attack my humor in their print magazine. Now I am partially open to means of humiliation and critiques, unfortunately getting zinged by Commonweal to me is more like an imprimatur. I have mixed feelings about these periodicals worrying about what they print. Part of me wants them to totally come out and print what they are thinking instead of the false fencing that often gets engaged in. To give them the proverbial rope to hang themselves. This is not a very charitable attitude and the other part of me struggles to pray for them that the full truth may be proclaimed.
I believe G.K. Chesterton compared the Church to a large playground and I think this is a very apt analogy. Just why so many want to dance on or beyond the fences is difficult for me to understand.
I have also been meaning to link to this very funny song parody at Thumos called Both Sides Then (as sung by Thomas Reese)
13 comments
Thinking “outside of the dox.”
You do have a way with words!
Just for your reference, here is the GKC quote you mention:
Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.
Orthodoxy CW1:350
There is also this, which bolsters the argument:
It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke – that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.
Illustrated London News August 17, 1907 CW27:533
“… the sorts of debates that thinking Catholics are engaged in..”
I guess I’m one of the non-thinking Catholics. I had a subscription of the St. Anthony Messenger for a couple of years THINKING it was an authentically faithful Catholic publication. I think not.
It was my mother who passed along my first St. Anthony Messenger to read. At first I thought well these aren’t hard core Roman Catholics writing this stuff are they? The the more I read, the more I thought, “Hey, I can line the bottom of the bird cage with this stuff”. I haven’t expained to my parents that this magazine is” Clown propaganda”, and not an orthodox publication. It’s stuff like this that scares me for my parents. They are being so easily taken far away from the Roman Catholic Church. They are willing to buy all of this crap because a priest or nun has their name listed as writers for the “rag”. They don’t question anything if it comes out of a priest or nuns mouth. I’m frustrated with them because I figure if I know this is wrong, why can’t they see it? But then they have Clown masses at their church, and I don’t. (sheeesh).
The Cafeteria isn’t closed. Management is just going to follow the USDA guidelines as to what to serve.
Someone sent me a subscription to St. Anthony’s Messenger about 8 years ago. If Catholic periodicals were food, St. Anthony’s would be jello with marshmallows. Slippery, sweet, inducing arteriosclerosis, bad for kids, and melts easily when exposed to light and air.
Lucy, pray for Mom & Dad (I will too), if they are like mine, they come from a more obedient generation which is a good and bad thing depending on what’s being transmitted.
Back when St. Anthony’s Messenger was presumably more faithful, my mother and father became pen pals through it, and then of course got married. So for me (a romantic at heart!), St. Anthony’s Mess.’s veering is particularly sad for me.
And John, you’re making me hungry.
Could you please include an mp3 file of that song?
My mother has received St. Anthony Messenger for years as a gift from one of her college friends. How do I counter that? I started sending her crises and This Rock. She is seeing the light.
And there was one really good poem published in St. Anthony in 1999 that was so good, it got a CPA award, although the CPA awards some not-so-great stuff so maybe that award won’t mean much to you, but anyway, there was ONE good poem in there once…
Suzanne, I’m on it! My parents will have This Rock as soon as I can find out how to have it sent to them. Good idea.
Teresa, You’re right. I will pray for my parents and the church where they go. Eventually the Archdiosceis will send that church an orthodox priest to knock them all back on their ears. What a joy that will be to see. I can just hear it ” YOu mean we could have had this all along? The mass never really changed? We just had priest after priest with his own agenda asto how a mass should be said? Praise God!”
I’m new here. Just wanted to comment that I came into the Roman Catholic Church in 2001. Fortunately, I did not rely on the materials used in my RCIA class which were mostly from St. Anthony Messenger. In fact, I got into a lot of hot water when I questioned some of this material and asked the people teaching the class if they ever read the Bible, the CCC or any writings by then Pope John Paul II or any orthodox writers. Their response-these materials have been approved by the Archdiocese. Guess which one. Seattle, WA.
Well thanks be to God, Elaine, that you were able to discern truth through your RCIA process! That truly breaks my heart that you had that experience because you deserved better. Although I’m what they call a “cradle Catholic,” I’ve had to ask Michael the Archangel to stand with me in my sponsorship of candidates in RCIA. My post would be too long if I gave you all the examples. Suffice to say, those running the programs teaching error rolled their eyes when I came into the room.