Spiritual dimension of all things gets fresh attention

Photo by Frank Cone Source

A reading of the world around us and of the internal domain that gives rise to our capabilities relating to our experience will fail if it sources everything solely in the material. Rather, the evidence compels an understanding of the world as having a dimension that we might term spiritual.

This is highlighted in the work of Iain McGilchrist whose two-volume book on epistemology and metaphysics was published last year as The Matter With Things.

From Wikipedia, a quick account of McGilchrist's status in the world of literature and neuroscience:

Iain McGilchrist (born 1953) is a psychiatrist, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar. McGilchrist came to prominence after the publication of his book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled "The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World".

McGilchrist read English at New College, Oxford, but having published Against Criticism in 1982, he later retrained in medicine and has been a neuroimaging researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in south London. McGilchrist is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and has three times been elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

He  lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of Scotland and continues to write, and deliver many lectures and interviews.

In this post I draw on the study of McGilchrist's The Matter with Things conducted by American author Rod Dreher, who is delving into the work as preparation for a book he is writing on what we miss in our experience of life because of the filters that our learned ways of thinking, and especially our culture, impose on us.  Dreher has created excerpts from the text (possibly behind a paywall) which I will use to further my exploration in this blog on the subject of how many scientists today go with the mentality of the age and close their minds to all the possibilities that make up reality.  

To start, there is a growing awareness that the laws of physics and those observed in human psychology come together in a way that demands we open our minds to new ways of  perceiving the whole of existence.

To quote McGilchrist (per Dreher):

Legendary astrophysicist Fred Hoyle famously remarked: ‘A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature’. Astrophysicist Paul Davies’s view similarly is that ‘there is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe … the impression of design is overwhelming’. And for Einstein, the cosmos showed evidence of ‘an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection’.

We will see how this is true by quoting McGilchrist in his assessment of recent discoveries in neuroscience: 

Neuroscientists VS Ramachandran and Colin Blakemore conclude that ‘consciousness, like gravity, mass, and charge, may be one of the irreducible properties of the universe for which no further account is possible.’ Physicists agree. According to Heisenberg, ‘if we go beyond biology and include psychology in the discussion, then there can scarcely be any doubt but that the concepts of physics, chemistry, and evolution together will not be sufficient to describe the facts.’ This is very similar to Bohr’s insight that ‘consciousness must be part of nature, or, more generally, of reality, which means that, quite apart from the laws of physics and chemistry, as laid down in quantum theory, we must also consider laws of quite a different kind.’ The great mathematician and physicist von Neumann confirmed that ‘it is inherently entirely correct that the measurement or the related process of the subjective perception is a new entity relative to the physical environment and is not reducible to the latter. Indeed, subjective perception leads us into the intellectual inner life of the individual, which is extraobservational by its very nature.’ And in similar vein, Adam Frank, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Rochester, New York, writes that we must entertain the ‘radical possibility that some rudimentary form of consciousness must be added to the list of things, such as mass or electric charge, that the world is built of.’

There is, to put it conservatively, a good chance they are right. It may be irritating to some to face the fact that after several thousand years of ratiocination and experimentation we are arriving at truths that were anciently known to philosophers and sages, East and West, though it is exciting and perhaps reassuring to have them confirmed by elaborate experimentation.

McGilchrist continues:

If asked my view, I would say that matter appears to be an element within consciousness that provides the necessary resistance for creation; and with that, inevitably, for individuality to arise. All individual beings, including ourselves, bring forms into being and cause them to persist: each of us is not, ultimately, any one conformation in matter, but, Ship of Theseus-like, the conformation itself, the morphogenetic field, which requires matter in order to be brought into being, but, once existent, persists while matter comes and goes within it. Could matter be a ‘phase’ of consciousness?

He offers this observation:

Mass and energy are interconvertible: the brain is a manifestation as mass, the mind a manifestation as energy. 

An important question:

How on earth might consciousness – immaterial and lacking extension in space as it is – emerge from matter, which is very clearly both material and extended in space? Since, as Colin McGinn reflects, this ‘looks more like magic than a predictable unfolding of natural law’, he suggests ‘the following heady speculation: that the origin of consciousness somehow draws upon those properties of the universe that antedate and explain the occurrence of the big bang … If so, consciousness turns out to be older than matter in space, at least as to its raw materials.’ That would be one very important difference. 

'Everything, living or not, is constituted from elements having a nature that is both physical and nonphysical – that is, capable of combining into mental wholes.’

Max Planck, who died in 1947, was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him a Nobel Prize: 

A long roll call of the most distinguished physicists would support the view that the originary ‘stuff’ of the universe is consciousness. Thus Max Planck was famously asked whether he thought consciousness could be explained in terms of matter and its laws. ‘No’, he replied. ‘I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.’ It is worth noting that the interviewer prefaces his piece with the remark: ‘In my interview with him Professor Planck replied to all my questions with a quite remarkable lack of hesitation. It would seem that his ideas on these subjects are now definitely formed, or else that he thinks with remarkable rapidity – probably both suppositions are true.’

Thirteen years later, and three years before he died, Planck went further:

As a physicist, and therefore as a man who has spent his whole life in the service of the most down-to-earth science, namely the exploration of matter, no one is going to take me for a starry-eyed dreamer. After all my exploration of the atom, then, let me tell you this: there is no matter as such. All matter arises and exists only by virtue of a force which sets the atomic particles oscillating, and holds them together in that tiniest of solar systems, the atom … we must suppose, behind this force, a conscious, intelligent spirit. This spirit is the ultimate origin of matter. 

 Further on this topic:

Astronomical physicist Richard Conn Henry writing in Nature avers that ‘the Universe is entirely mental … and we must learn to perceive it as such’. Elsewhere he expands on this theme, and goes further:

Non-local causality is a concept that had never played any role in physics, other than in rejection (‘action-at-a-distance’), until Aspect showed in 1981 that the alternative would be the abandonment of the cherished belief in mind-independent reality; suddenly, spooky-action-at-a-distance became the lesser of two evils, in the minds of the materialists.

Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism.

So we read that "a theistic view of our existence" is more credible than solipsism, the egocentric "doctrine that, in principle, 'existence' means for me my existence and that of my mental states" (Source).  

McGilchrist continues to mount his argument that science is finding that there is more to reality than meets the eye:

The eminent evolutionary biologist Sir Julian Huxley wrote that:

the relation between mind and matter is so close that mind or something of the nature as mind must exist throughout the entire universe. This is, I believe, the truth. We may never be able to prove it, but it is the most economical hypothesis: it fits the facts much more simply … than one-sided idealism or one-sided materialism.

McGilchrist provides a summary of what the science means:

In sum, it seems that (1) mind and matter have a close relationship; that (2) we cannot logically dismiss the existence of consciousness; and (3) ought to be unwilling to dismiss the existence of matter; that (4) they are not so distinct that they cannot interact; that (5) neither are they identical; and yet (6) may be aspects of one and the same reality. Nonetheless (7) they are not equal, in that there is reason to believe that consciousness is prior ontologically to matter.

The filters of past scientific assumptions need to be eradicated:

The re-admission of the observer’s consciousness into the description of the cosmos is a change of unequalled significance in the history of science since its banishment in the seventeenth century. In a theme that should be familiar to my readers, that exile enabled us to become hugely, indisputably, powerful; but at the price of a lack of understanding of what it is we had power over. 

Assumptions made in the past have been found to be eccentric and illogical:

Before we conclude that it is absurd to suppose that other organisms, perhaps far removed from us in terms of evolutionary history, have awareness, let us remember that the detached post-Enlightenment view of life as mechanical, and of consciousness as something we must not make the mistake of attributing to any creature other than ourselves, on the basis that to do so is to make assumptions we cannot validate, is both historically anomalous and illogical. Historically anomalous, because such a view would never have been accepted by Greek or Roman, Chinese or Indian philosophers, or our own, until Descartes. Illogical, because to assume that they do not have awareness is also an assumption we cannot validate, but which, unlike its alternative, does violence to every other human faculty.

Another key point:

That consciousness interacts with matter, an insuperable problem in the seventeenth century, is no longer insuperable, since matter is already intrinsically a field that interacts with a field of consciousness.

'What has always made science possible is [...] our imagination, not our avoidance of it.'

Imagination is likewise crucial:

In the words of Lakoff and Johnson,

as embodied, imaginative creatures, we never were separated or divorced from reality in the first place. What has always made science possible is our embodiment, not our transcendence of it, and our imagination, not our avoidance of it.

According to geneticist Ho, there is

no mismatch between knowledge and our experience of reality. For reality is not a flat impenetrable surface of common-sensible literalness. It has breadths and depths beyond our wildest imagination. The quality of our vision depends entirely on the extent our consciousness permeates and resonates within her magical realm. In this respect, there is complete symmetry between science and art. Both are creative acts of the most intimate communion with reality.

McGilchrist raises the stakes with this declaration:

In this light, the question ‘what is consciousness for?’ appears to be based on a false premise. Consciousness is nothing to our purpose; we are to the purpose of consciousness.

 He develops this theme of  a clash of world views:

‘Physicalism’, writes Whitehead scholar Matt Segall, referring to what I call scientific materialism,

is the idea that the universe is fundamentally composed of entirely blind, deaf, dumb – DEAD – particles in purposeless motion through empty space. For some reason, these dumb particles follow the orders of a system of eternal mathematical laws that, for some reason, the human mind, itself made of nothing more than dumb particles, is capable of comprehending. On this definition of physicalism, ‘life’ and ‘consciousness’ are just words we have for epiphenomenal illusions with no causal influence on what happens. ‘Life’ is a genetic algorithm and ‘consciousness’ is a meme machine, in Dawkins’ and Dennett’s terms. We are undead zombies, not living persons, on this reading of physicalism.

By contrast, according to Thomas Nagel, ‘the inescapable fact that has to be accommodated in any complete conception of the universe’,

is that the appearance of living organisms has eventually given rise to consciousness, perception, desire, action, and the formation of both beliefs and intentions on the basis of reasons. If all this has a natural explanation, the possibilities were inherent in the universe long before there was life, and inherent in early life long before the appearance of animals. A satisfying explanation would show that the realisation of these possibilities was not vanishingly improbable but a significant likelihood given the laws of nature and the composition of the universe. It would reveal mind and reason as basic aspects of a nonmaterialistic natural order.

If one is certain that consciousness emerged from matter, then this is indeed a conundrum, and I agree with Nagel’s conclusions. But to me even for the possibilities of consciousness, and all the rest, to be inherent, the actualities must have been present, otherwise we are back to what one might call the Midshipman Easy problem. Nagel points up the trap for reductionism, since, if consciousness exists (and it does) and it cannot emerge (and it cannot), this implies that consciousness was there all along. So he continues: ‘since conscious organisms are not composed of a special kind of stuff, but can be constructed, apparently, from any of the matter in the universe, suitably arranged, it follows that this monism will be universal. Everything, living or not, is constituted from elements having a nature that is both physical and nonphysical – that is, capable of combining into mental wholes.’

Later:

The grounding consciousness is not deterministic. It has none of the characteristics of an omnipotent and omniscient engineering God constructing and winding up a mechanism. It is in the process of discovering itself through its creative potential (one thing we all know directly from our own experience is that consciousness is endlessly creative). …

More:

Nobel Prize-winning physiologist George Wald thought that ‘the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create … In them the universe begins to know itself.’

This is entirely in keeping with the model I am recommending for consideration. But, echoing Yukawa’s words, Wald reflected: ‘Let me say that it is not only easier to say these things to physicists than to my fellow biologists, but easier to say them in India than in the West’. He continues: ‘Mind is not only not locatable, it has no location. It is not a thing in space and time, not measurable; hence – as I said at the beginning of this paper – not assimilable as science.’

McGilchrist continues quoting from Wald:

He put forward the hypothesis that Mind,

rather than being a very late development in the evolution of living things, restricted to organisms with the most complex nervous systems – all of which I had believed to be true – that Mind instead has been there always, and that this universe is life-breeding because the pervasive presence of Mind had guided it to be so. That thought, though elating as a game is elating, so offended my scientific possibilities as to embarrass me. It took only a few weeks, however, for me to realize that I was in excellent company. That kind of thought is not only deeply embedded in millennia-old Eastern philosophies, but it has been expressed plainly by a number of great and very recent physicists.

The recourse to a multiverse to avoid acknowledging even the possibility of God as principal agent in bringing all that we know into existence is raised in McGilchrist's exhaustive study of the various realms that comprise reality:

The multiverse hypothesis suggests that the explanation for the unimaginably intricate interrelationship of highly precise factors necessary to permit the evolution of life in the cosmos just happening to be present together and to the right extent is that, as long as you keep multiplying universes indefinitely, eventually you are bound to end up with one like this. It is worth setting the probability in context, because it shows that the number of such universes would have to be effectively infinite. Here is astrophysicist Lee Smolin: 

 

That there is strong evidence to argue that consciousness is "woven into the fabric of reality" is a key takeaway for Dreher whose forthcoming book dwells of acknowledging the role of "enchantment" as a stepping stone in our journey in awakening to all that God is, how God is ever present to us in our world, if only we would open our hearts and minds.

Though McGilchrist does not believe in God, he comes right up to the point of belief with his statement that "that this universe is life-breeding because the pervasive presence of Mind had guided it to be so".

A second fundamental point he makes is that it is we in the West who are primitive creatures with regard knowing what is real, allowing bland materialism to capture our spirit, and subdue us in the exercise of our human capabilities.

💢See also Where science has lost its way in service

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

Prayer for Russia, Ukraine and world peace

Mary, the Mother of God. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Tallin, Estonia. Credit: A. Davey

To understand what occurred with Pope Francis's consecration of Russia to Mary last Friday, some scene-setting is in order as the spiritual meshes with human affairs here and now. First, why Mary?

"They have no wine," Mary says to her son Jesus while they were at the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus was caught by surprise, but Mary's concern for the young couple was enough to move her son, the Messiah, and all powerful God,  into action. "Do whatever he tells you," Mary told the servants, and they fetched jars of water, which Jesus turned into wine, rescuing the hosts from grim embarrassment.

Second, we have to appreciate that the early Church, speaking of the dead as well as the living, saw the community of believers as a mystical body, a concept Paul was inspired to unfold. Every part of the body is part of a unified whole, and we are to pray for each other. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) states the teaching this way:

"When the Lord comes in glory, and all his angels with him, death will be no more and all things will be subject to him. But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified [in Purgatory], while others are in glory, contemplating 'in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is'." [para 954]

And:

"So it is that the union of the wayfarers with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted, but on the contray, according to the constant faith of the Church, this union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods." [955]

Thirdly, from the earliest times Christians have understood John the Apostle's depiction of Jesus on the cross saying to his mother and to John: "Woman, here is your son," and to John, "Here is your mother," has significance beyond John, given the use of "Woman", which harks back to Genesis where the term is used of Eve as the mother of all (Genesis 3:20). This view of Mary's wider role in the work of bringing all to Christ is already part of the Church's tradition in 160, in Justin Martyr's writings.

Therefore, Pope Francis in Rome, in union with the Church around the world, last Friday stood on the firm foundation of Christian practice to ask Mary to intercede with her Son, that He might undo the devastating effects of the disobedience continuing into our present time that was brought into the world by our first parents.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India, reads the consecration prayer. Source: YouTube

The prayer used around the world is this:

O Mary, Mother of God and our mother, in this time of trial we turn to you. As our mother, you love us and know us: No concern of our hearts is hidden from you. Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence! You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Yet we have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples' dreams of peace and the hopes of the young. We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.

We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons. We stopped being our neighbor's keepers and stewards of our common home. We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war, and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters. We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves. Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!

Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life. He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the church and for all humanity. By God's gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.

We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart. We are your beloved children. In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion. At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort. Say to us once more: "Am I not here, I who am your Mother?" You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times. In you we place our trust. We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.

That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs. To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: "They have no wine" (John 2:3). Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded. We have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace. We opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness. How greatly we need your maternal help!

Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.

Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war.

Ark of the New Covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.

Queen of Heaven, restore God's peace to the world.

Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness.

Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.

Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love.

Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity.

Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts. May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew. Amid the thunder of weapons, may your prayer turn our thoughts to peace. May your maternal touch soothe those who suffer and flee from the rain of bombs. May your motherly embrace comfort those forced to leave their homes and their native land. May your sorrowful heart move us to compassion and inspire us to open our doors and to care for our brothers and sisters who are injured and cast aside.

Holy Mother of God, as you stood beneath the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple at your side, said: "Behold your son" (John 19:26). In this way, he entrusted each of us to you. To the disciple, and to each of us, he said: "Behold, your Mother" (John 19:27). Mother Mary, we now desire to welcome you into our lives and our history.

At this hour, a weary and distraught humanity stands with you beneath the cross, needing to entrust itself to you and, through you, to consecrate itself to Christ. The people of Ukraine and Russia, who venerate you with great love, now turn to you, even as your heart beats with compassion for them and for all those peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and poverty.

Therefore, Mother of God and our mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine. Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love. Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world. The "fiat" that arose from your heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace. We trust that, through your heart, peace will dawn once more. To you we consecrate the future of the whole human family, the needs and expectations of every people, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

Through your intercession, may God's mercy be poured out on the earth and the gentle rhythm of peace return to mark our days. Our Lady of the "fiat", on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God. May you, our "living fountain of hope", water the dryness of our hearts. In your womb Jesus took flesh; help us to foster the growth of communion. You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace. Amen.

💢 Watch the Consecration Ceremony at St Peter's Basilica in full here 

💢 Please note that the use of statues or pictorial mosaics in Catholics' devotion to - not worship of - Mary is to help us remember that she is a human who has struggled through many difficulties but remained steadfast through her trust in God's love. 

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published. 

Words matter immensely. Trans please note.

                                                                                                                                     Source

Words matter immensely in law and where important topics are being considered. Definitions are usefully agreed upon at the start of a debates on contentious issues. Therefore, it's key to our personal and social health that we forge agreement on how to describe people whom we have to relate to or who  have crucial roles in our life.

Pronoun use has been getting a lot of attention recently, with activists within the micro-minority that is the trans community forcing the issue. Therefore, it was strange that the Catholic Church in the US was mocked for declaring that thousands of people were not baptised because a priest had adopted the practictice of saying "We baptise you..." instead of the prescribed formula "I baptise you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit". The AP reports:

The difference is theologically crucial, the Vatican ruled in 2020, because it’s not the “we” of the congregation doing the baptizing but the “I” of Jesus Christ, working through the priest.

Words matter when there is religious belief involved, and in many areas relating to the performance of important responsibilities. This is emphasised by one Australian commentator:

Institutions entrusted with the care and welfare of individuals and society appreciate that conceptual precision requires lexemic precision, because words hold power. 

The power contained in legal formulae or oaths of office results in a change in legal status or level of public authority for those to whom the words pertain in civil proceedings. The Australian Constitution instructs that a person elected to Parliament “must make and subscribe an oath or affirmation of allegiance before the Governor-General or some person authorised by the Governor-General”.

Any departure from the approved formula places into question the liceity of the oath/affirmation and means that the elected person may not take part in any proceedings of the House. The federal government guidelines include no provision for altering the official wording of the oath/affirmation. The words we use matter.

On 24 February 2022, Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville announced that more than 1,000 police officers were incorrectly sworn in due to an administrative oversight. For the past eight years, acting assistant commissioners have been swearing in police officers and protective services officers invalidly, which means they have been undertaking their duties without having the legal powers to do so.

These officers must now be sworn-in again and emergency legislation must be enacted to ensure the legality of arrests they made and legal proceedings involving them. Validity of administrative authority and validity of wording results in the valid performance of duties. The words we use — and the valid authority to execute the power contained in those words — matter.

Before going on to argue that the efforts within the transgender world to claim ownership of socially important words are deeply detrimental to the health of society, I want to dwell on the mistake by the American priest, using it as a case study of the significance of the language we use.

The Australian commentator, a professor at the Australian Catholic University, writes:

Catholic liturgy is regulated from the highest authorities in the Church — namely, the Pope and, as laws may determine, the local episcopal conference or local bishop — and “no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority”. The Second Vatican Council taught that liturgical rites are not private functions, but celebrations which pertain to the whole church because they “manifest it and have effects upon it”.

Why does the Catholic Church insist on getting liturgical words right? Because the faith of the faithful is at stake when we celebrate liturgy. An ancient axiom expressing the rationale of the church’s liturgy is, lex orandi, lex credendi (attributed to Prosper of Aquitaine, circa 370 – circa 465) which is generally translated as: “let the law of prayer establish the law of belief”. What we do and say in liturgy both effects and affects our faith. The Church’s rites are privileged expressions of what we believe, distilled and polished over time, and performed by the faithful in the presence of God.

The Church’s ritual texts are linguistic facts — they do what they say they will do and have the power to change lives: from unbaptised to baptised, from lay person to ordained leader, from unforgiven to forgiven. The ritual words that effect such changes in people are considered sacred because God’s power is enacted when they are spoken. Changing these sacred words also changes the theological tenets they contain and convey.

Father Arango’s error was a small but significant one: in an attempt at inclusivity he said “We baptise you …” instead of “I baptise you …” which, according to Church law, invalidated the baptisms he performed. When the “I” of Christ who has the power to sanctify someone through baptism is replaced with “We”, the end result is that the assembly is led to worship itself rather than to worship God who is the only source of sacramental grace.

“We” as an assembly — with all our human flaws and tendency to sin — have no power to baptise anyone; the priest as a man has no power to baptise anyone. As an ordained representative of Christ standing in persona Christi when enacting a sacrament, the priest speaks Christ’s words over the candidate as Christ’s power effects the sacrament in that individual.

In a similar way, the complexities of human life shine through when we look at the terms "woman", "mother" and "father", and the pronouns that have now become a thing of play. Instead of simplifying life, as a coherent culture does, the efforts pushed by trans activists are leading to semantic confusion. 

Look at this headline: Transgender man who gave birth slams nurses who called him ‘Mom’. Instead of reading and understanding, we have to sit and think what is being said, and we are compelled to assess the implications of the word play. Language is meant to aid social discourse, not stymie it.

In the case that the headline relates to, the complainant, who identifies as a man  — beard and all — had this to say:

“The only thing that made me dysphoric about my pregnancy was the misgendering that happened to me when I was getting medical care for my pregnancy,” he said. “The business of pregnancy — and yes, I say business, because the entire institution of pregnancy care in America is centered around selling this concept of ‘motherhood’ — is so intertwined with gender that it was hard to escape being misgendered.”

The confusion occurred this way: 

In 2020, Los Angeles resident Bennett Kaspar-Williams, 37, gave birth via caesarean to a healthy baby boy with his husband, Malik. But in the process of having little Hudson, Kaspar-Williams was troubled by the constant misgendering of him by hospital staff who insisted on calling him a “mom”.

So this mother seemingly objects to "motherhood" even being a term we can use in our discourse and is intent on having a  shift in the language of the whole society simply to accommodate a noncomformist wish to be a known as a father—one of two—in the family.

That's a bold ambition because, on behalf of a microminority, as mentioned above, the whole civilisation's experiential awareness of the necessary elements of a healthy family — that the child be raised by the combined efforts of a mother (with all her female attributes) and a father (with all his male attributes) — is pushed aside for the purpose of complying with the social fad of self-invention.

To oppose this ambition is not to discriminate against a woman who identifies as a man but to express biological and psychological reality.

We also have the case of an English biological woman who likewise gave birth but wished the child's birth certificate to identify her as the father. The Guardian reports:

His passport and National Health Service records were changed to show he was male, but he retained his female reproductive system. 

Both the high court, in September 2019, and the appeal court, in April 2020, ruled that even though he was considered a man by law and had a gender recognition certificate to prove it, he could not appear on his child’s birth certificate as “father” or parent.

The chief justice, Lord Burnett, came down in favour of the right of a child born to a transgender parent to know the biological reality of its birth, rather than the parent’s right to be recognised on the birth certificate in their legal gender.

Burnett said that laws passed by parliament had not “decoupled the concept of mother from gender”. He said any interference with McConnell’s rights to family life, caused by birth registration documents describing him as a mother when he lives as his child’s father, could be justified.

To put it another way, words matter, with society taking on the role of protector of a child's right to know where they came from. Society knows that this knowledge of origin is also important in safeguarding lines of heredity. 

Then there is the tragic case of a loss of a baby because medical records showed the transgender patient as a male whereas in reality the patient was a woman about to give birth.

Read Abigail Shrier's powerful examination of the transgender phenomenon Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. While some transgender cases are genuine, it is clear that much of the explosion in cases in recent years is an outgrowth of troubled youngsters being infected by a contagion spread by gender ideology activists through social media.

But, to continue my theme, Shrier cautions that gender ideology "also frames the unintended consequences of medical professionals' fudging science, rewriting medical definitions, and tolerating shoddy research to placate activists".

"At each stage, doctors may have thought: Where was the harm? And so, as a consequence, judges now decide the fate of children and their families based on phony, medically unsubstantiated metaphysics, as if it were factual that all adolescents have an immutable, ineffable 'gender identity', knowable only to the adolescents themselves," she continued.

"This is gender ideology—the belief, not backed by any meaningful empirical evidence, that we all have an ineffable gender identity, knowable only to us. This identity has no observable markers, and it is immutable (until the moment we change our minds and reveal ourselves as 'gender-fluid,' of course). It is promoted by virtually every practitioner of 'gender-affirming care', it is unfalsifiable, and its hold on our legal system is gaining ground," Shrier warned.  

New research is also raising questions about transgender medicine. 

Dr. Lisa Littman has a study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, showing that the majority of those who have de-transitioned, that is, reversed their initial decision to change their gender identity, say they did not receive an adequate evaluation from a medical care provider before they initially transitioned.

Speaking on the Megyn Kelly Show she said it's heartbreaking what's happened to some of these patients. "These young people didn't get the evaluation, the support, the kind of mental health services that they needed and instead, were really rushed to medical transition and surgery," she said.

As far as pronouns are concerned, it is a courtesy to use whatever name or pronoun a person wishes, just as we use nicknames that a person has accepted. However, as with nicknames, we know there is a reality that is official or true, which takes precedence when the circumstances demand over whatever has been assumed by way of personal preference.

The point is that we must not let unreality strangle what is real, whether in matters affecting legal responsibilities or social responsibilities or social behaviour. All of us have a responsibility to protect each other, and women are more vulnerable in our present society than they have been under traditional standards of behaviour arising from Christian teaching.

Legislation in most Western jurisdictions permits a woman to declare that she is a man, or vice versa, showing how gender ideology has taken hold among the prominent institutions as activists have waved the banner of "human rights" and bullied the elite to comply to their demands, illustrating how activism can be effective..

But in everyday use, especially within the family, we can continue to hold on to reality and refer to those who have transitioned in this way: "She is a woman identifying as a man"; "He is a man identifying as a woman". Most importantly, we need to ensure we do not let the biological male in particular dominate spaces preserved for biological women as a whole. 

The reality is that no matter how a biological male may demand that they are a woman, that can never be the case. Why cannot the male say, should the matter ever come up, that they identify as a woman. Society does a disservice to transitioned males by calling them a woman as in the case of the Jeopardy winner or of the transitioned male Admiral Rachel Levine, who " is one of USA Today's Women of the Year, a recognition of women across the country who have made a significant impact".

That Levine would serve nicely as clickbait for USA Today was clear.

By being aware of all of this degradation of social discourse we will steady the ship of society as the woke elite press on in exploring the far reaches of unreality and compulsion.

💢 See also Maledom gets in the way of women's rights

                    The Dangerous Denial of Sex: Transgender ideology harms women, gays 

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

Who is God? This question is at our core.

 

A "God-shaped hole" has opened in American society and "we risk leaving people at the mercy of a disorienting permanent moral flux", stoking turmoil in the nation, writes Murtaza Hussain, an American national security journalist.

The increasingly obvious absence of God in the US and much of Europe, and so the lack of a common culture, gives rise to this view: "No wonder the newly ascendant American ideologies, having to fill the vacuum where religion once was, are so divisive."  

However, although a survey just out conducted for the Deseret News found "Americans retain core religious beliefs 'even as they are less attached to religious practices and institutions, such as daily prayer and attending services'," the trend lines, especially for the young, press home the poor example the older generations have given in cultivating a life built on prayer, worship, and moral integrity.

The immense distraction of social media also has an impact on the ability of young people to open their hearts and minds to building a relationship with God.

God.

Who is God? 

An exquisite lesson on the nature of God has just been delivered by Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles. He tells us:

Friends, we have the privilege of reading one of the most important texts in the Bible, period. We're in the third chapter of the book of Exodus. It's the text in which God gives himself a name—if you want, defines himself, but as we'll see, in a way that's really no definition at all. But it’s God's manifestation of his own identity.

And so we're on very holy ground with this story.

Here's this famous and beautifully told account. “An angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.”

We have to pause there. Such an important moment. The fire of God's presence, yes indeed. But it doesn't consume the bush. In fact, it simply makes the bush more luminous and more radiant and more beautiful.

So it goes with the God of the Bible. Unlike the gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans who, when they broke into human affairs, destroyed things, incinerated people, because they were in a competitive relationship with this world. For the gods to assert themselves, something in this world had to give.

That's not the God of the Bible. Why? It’s very clear. Because God is the creator of all things. There's nothing in this world that can compete with God. God gave whatever the world has. God is not one more item in the world.

So I can look around this room and see various items in it. What don't I see? The one who designed this room. He's not here, he's not in the room.

And so God, the Designer and Creator of the whole universe, is not competing with us but rather —listen to me, now, — as God gets closer to you, you become more luminous and more beautiful and more radiant.

That's the God now who manifests himself to Moses. But now, watch this very interesting dynamic, which encapsulates in many ways a dynamic you can see throughout the biblical narratives.

“When the LORD saw him coming over to look more closely . . .”

Moses said, "Look, what's going on? Let me find out." Well, there's the aristocratic [though humbled] Moses used to having things his way. “Here's this weird sight. Let me go and investigate.”

“When the LORD saw him coming over, he called out from the bush, ‘Moses, Moses.’"

Well, here's the Lord who knows this shepherd, this nobody who's tending sheep in this mountain range in the Sinai peninsula.

Boy, this God must be a very local, very intimate deity. Very close.

Moses answers, "Here I am." And God says, "Come no nearer! Take off your sandals, for you are on holy ground."

Now here's the rhythm I want you to see. Is God close to us? Yes.

See, we don't believe in a deist God, which is to say a distant cause of the universe that way back then or way up there somewhere did his causal thing and then went into retirement, who doesn't really know the world.

Look at a lot of mysticisms where the divine is sort of a principle or a force but doesn't really know us. Look at the Star Wars mythology, which sums up a lot of the spiritual traditions of the world. Sure, there's the force out there which can be used for good or evil, but the force doesn't know me. The force doesn't know my name.

The distant deist prime mover doesn't know my name, but God knows the name of this little nobody tending sheep in the Sinai Peninsula, because the true God, Augustine put it this way, is "intimior intimo meo", closer to me than I am to myself.

Why? Because God is here and now bringing all things into being. The Creator didn't do something long ago then retire. No. God continually creates the universe. All things, moment to moment, depend upon the causal influence of God.

So, of course, God knows me better than I know myself. Of course, God knows my name and knows your name. What does Jesus say? Every hair on your head is numbered. That's how intimately God knows us.

Beautiful. Beautiful. But now wait.

Lest this draws me into a kind of too chummy intimacy with God - “Back off, Moses. Take off your sandals because you are on holy ground.”

Why would you take off your shoes when you're on holy ground?

Well, what do shoes enable you to do? Well, they enable you to go anywhere. If I’ve got shoes on, I can walk confidently over all kinds of terrain. I am in command.

Now take your shoes off, well you're much more vulnerable, right? Rocky terrain. You're not going to be climbing that in bare feet. Take off your shoes, Moses. You are not in control here. You're on holy ground.

Now that word, holy, is kadosh in the Hebrew. The angels in Isaiah chapter 6 chant “kadosh, kadosh, kadosh”, holy, holy, holy.

You know what it means? It means “other”. Other. Other. Different. Transcendent.

Well, you just told me he's intimate to us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. True. And at the same time, as Augustine put it, he is “superior summo meo”. He's higher than anything I can possibly imagine.

The Creator of the universe is not an item within the universe. That which gives rise to the whole being of the finite world is not himself a being among beings. The true God who appears in the burning bush in such a way that he enhances and makes beautiful that to which he comes close, that God is both "intimior intimo meo et superior summo meo".

Closer to me than I am to myself and greater than anything I can possibly imagine. Now we're talking. That's the true God.

This play of imminence and transcendence continues. Listen to what the Lord says: "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob."

Well, I know your name. I know the name of your ancestors. I know the name of the patriarchs of your people. More to it, "I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cry of complaint. I know well their suffering."

Now think about this for a minute. Who's the most forgettable people in the ancient Near East? It would've been this poor enslaved tribe of the Hebrews in Egypt. They're not some great empire. They're not some great cultural force. They were enslaved nobodies. And yet God knows them and has heard their cry.

And furthermore, “I have come to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians, to lead them into a land good and spacious and flowing with milk and honey."

Wow. How intimate, involved, how aware of the people of Israel this God is.

So Moses might be thinking, "All right. He told me to take off my shoes and I'm on holy ground and all that, but now he seems, again, pretty intimate."

And so what does Moses do? And here we come to the climax of the story. He says, "All right, if you send me to Egypt to lead these people out and they ask, ‘Well, what's the name of this God who spoke to you?’ What will I tell them?"

Now, it's a reasonable question. What name? That means, who are you? What kind of being are you?

So Moses is asking a reasonable question. All right, Lord, what's your name?

Then comes the line now, which is the most famous line. It's the hinge, in many ways, upon which the biblical revelation turns.

What does God say? "I am who I am."

Now, you might say it's a bit like saying: "Hey Moses, stop asking me such a stupid question. I am who I am."

But press it even further. What's your name? Who are you? How can I specify you? Which being are you among the many beings of the world? Which god are you? There's a god of the river, god of the mountain, god of this people, god of that people.

You're a god clearly. Well, which one are you? What's your name?

No, no, no. The God that Moses is dealing with is not one of those little petty deities, not one little divine potentate among many. The Creator of the universe, as I've said, is not an item within the universe.

“I am who I am.”

[Being a mere item among many is] what God won't do. That's what God can't do. “I am who I am.” To be God is to be “to be”.

That's [13^th Century philosopher-priest] Thomas Aquinas. In God, Aquinas says, essence

Photo by Jeffrey Czum

and existence coincide. Now what does that highly abstract language mean?

Think of this camera in front of me I'm speaking into. That's a type of being. It exists. It exists in a particular way. It's got the form of camera.

There’re all these items around me I can see. There’re people around me I can see who are typical, they're types of being.

I can look up at the planet Mars, the planet Jupiter, I can look at the Milky Way and I can say, all these are types of being. I can name them. I can define them. Their existence is received and delimited according to certain essential principles.

Excuse the philosophy, but that's the way that our tradition has translated this language. They're all beings of some type.

And then there's God. “I am who I am.” To be God is not to be this or that, up or down, here or there, big, small. To be God is to be “to be.”

Now, where is this being itself? Well, everywhere in this room because nothing in this room would exist apart from God.

Where is God? He's in you in the most intimate way possible.

Where is this God who's being itself? Nowhere. Nowhere, because nothing in this room is God. Nothing in this whole cosmos is God. He's intimior intimo meo et superior summo meo, closer than we are to ourselves, greater than anything we can imagine.

It's that God whom we can neither control nor hide from that addresses Moses in the burning bush.

The two paths of sinners, by the way, and we walk them all the time, is we try to control God for our purposes, or we try to avoid him.

Give up. They're both hopeless paths. Rather, surrender to the God closer to you than you are to yourself, greater than anything you can possibly imagine.

And you know what he wants to do? He wants to set you on fire with his own presence to make you as radiant and beautiful as possible.

That's the God who addressed Moses.

That's the God who Jews and Christians have come to know over thousands of years, right up to the present generation. This understanding of God is conveyed in a brief study of the riches of the term kadosh. Knowing our place before God enables us to know who we are - in a deeper way than this catchphrase: "God is God, and I'm not!" Follow that link for a deeper knowledge of the God who knows us intimately.

💢 Read also Putin and the holiness of God

                       God's sense of humour shows through

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

West's cultural war's grim toll grows

Protesters try to block statement on gender in Boston

British-American writer Andrew Sullivan's Weekly Dish column at the weekend has particularly sharp insights on why transgender activists are pushing society in the wrong direction. He shows the same anxiety as I do over the cultural changes promoted under the broad woke agenda where personal rights and minority stances must be accepted by all under pain of social cancellation.

The case that drew Sullivan's astute commentary is Lia Thomas's rise in the US to be the women's national title holder in college swimming. Lia Thomas is biologically a male but identifies as a woman. Needless to say, Thomas's competitors cried foul given the physical advantage, as shown in the photo below.

 Sullivan, who is a homosexual, writes in his column:

Lia Thomas’ triumphs at the NCAA swimming finals are never going to be treated as completely fair by most people. Inclusion is important and trans athletes need to be treated with dignity. But the core biological differences between men and women simply cannot be wished away, and when we’re talking about high-level competition, the unfairness is simply unmissable. Yelling TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN! will not persuade anyone [...]

[...] activists need to understand that demanding people not believe what is in front of their ears and eyes is a mark not of a civil rights movement, but a form of authoritarianism.

It bears repeating, as Sullivan puts it: Inclusion is important and trans athletes need to be treated with dignity.  That is certainly my view, and fact that both Sullivan and myself are Christians gives weight to our avowal of respect to all those who identify differently from their biological status. The issue is that the rest of society is being forced to accept a position on sexuality and gender that has been generally accepted only by the elites in society, namely in academia, the mainstream news media, and in leftist politics.

The elites may accept the trans agenda as intellectually accurate, or do so in response of the cultural tide that silences dissent with the slogans of "hate speech", and "harm" or "aggression", but ordinary people know reality too well, and have their children to defend from the advocates of self-invention.

Sullivan produces the following statistics:

There’s also been some new polling on the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law just passed in Florida, and for those in the woke bubble, it is sobering news. Most people [...] don’t think kindergartners or second- or third-graders should be introduced to the concepts of critical gender and queer theory. They believe that the issues of homosexuality and transgender experience should be taught in a way that is “age-appropriate.”

Here’s the Morning Consult poll, which finds 51 - 35 percent majority for not teaching K-3 about trans or gay identity; and a 52 - 33 percent majority in favor of “age-appropriate” teaching thereafter. In what I take as a hopeful sign, though, a 44 - 40 percent plurality oppose the ability of parents to sue teachers — which is also part of the law.

A Daily Wire poll provided the actual wording:

“Below is a passage from a new state education law. Please indicate whether you support or oppose it. ‘Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

That passage had a 64 - 21 percent majority support. 

He also cited another poll which had findings opposite the above, but it did not present its questions with the context that the polls above did so its results would not be as reliable indicators of opinion.

This is Sullivan's assessment of the poll results:

What to make of all this? I’d say simply: people don’t want to ban teachers from doing their job, but they’re leery of indoctrination of the very young. And the context for this leeriness is a revolution in the teaching of these topics to incorporate critical queer and gender theory — that relegates biology to an afterthought, describes sex as a “spectrum”, and conflates sex with gender.

There’s an obvious sane compromise on this — age-appropriate sex ed in the most neutral manner possible after elementary school — but the radicalism of the critical queer and gender theory left and the moral panic of the religious right precludes it. Yes, the bill is too vague and encourages chilling lawsuits, which is why I’m against it. But yes, too, telling 5 year olds that boys can have periods and girls can have penises is completely inappropriate. It’s bewildering and, more to the point, untrue.  

 He finds the rhetoric disturbing:

The [LGBT+] alphabet movement calls any restrictions on teaching sex ed to elementary school kids a form of “hate” and argues that the law “will kill kids”. How’s that for crude emotional blackmail? 

His conclusion:

The good news is that most Americans support equality for trans and gay people (and, in terms of civil rights, we already have it); they’re just leery of the extreme forms that queer ideology is taking, and certainly don’t want their young children caught in the crossfire. If we start from that premise, there are places we can go and compromises we can reach. If we don’t, it’s culture war all the way down.

Speaking of culture war, the urgency over the need for society to stand up against the constant demands of the "progressives" is becoming ever clearer.

British academic Eric Kaufmann identifies the nature of the ugly clash of cultures under way:

Today’s culture wars pit advocates of equal outcomes and special protection for identity groups against defenders of due process, equal treatment, scientific reason, and free speech. Our political map is taking shape around this new divide between what I will call cultural socialism and cultural liberalism. 

Cultural socialism, which values equal results and harm prevention for identity groups over individual rights, has inspired race-based pedagogies and harsh punishments for controversial speech. Rooted in the idea that historically marginalized groups are sacred, this view is no passing fad. Letters, associations, universities, and media defending free speech notwithstanding, the young adherents of cultural socialism are steadily overturning the liberal ethos of the adult world.

Kaufmann's resdarch has found that young are supportive of controlling behaviour and speech, even if it affects themselves by way of access to a job or in not being "allowed" to say what they think to be right or true.

Survey data from my new Manhattan Institute report, “The Politics of the Culture Wars in Contemporary America,” show the scale of the challenge. While the American public leans two-to-one in favor of cultural liberalism, a majority of Americans under 30 incline toward cultural socialism. For instance, while 65 percent of Americans over 55 oppose Google’s decision to fire James Damore for having questioned the firm’s training on gender equity, those under 30 support the firing by a 59–41 margin.  

On the use of critical race theory in school, a similar divide emerges. Eight in ten people over age 55 oppose teaching schoolchildren that the United States was founded on racism and remains systemically racist, or that the country and their homes were built on stolen land. A slight majority of young people support teaching these notions. 

By a 48–27 margin, respondents under 30 agree that “My fear of losing my job or reputation due to something I said or posted online is a justified price to pay to protect historically disadvantaged groups.” Those over 50, by contrast, disagree by a 51–17 margin. Younger age brackets are both more fearful of cancel culture and more supportive of it than are older age groups.

 He concludes:

America still has two cultural liberals for every cultural socialist. Questions of cancel culture and CRT split Democrats and unite Republicans, putting pressure on both parties to resist cultural socialism. Twenty percent of Democrats, one-third of independents, and nearly half of Republican voters now rank culture-war issues as a top concern, my survey finds. The classical liberal inheritance that underpins our legal system does not live in the hearts of younger generations because it has not been brought to life in stories, film, or education. We urgently need to revive this lost tradition—but the hour is late.

Read more about Kaufmann's conclusions flowing from his research in author Rod Dreher's report of a conference in Hungary that focused on the dark clouds of culture war. 

The seriousness of the threat of wokeness was highlighted both by Kaufmann and by another speaker who impressed Dreher, James Orr, a lecturer at St. John’s College, Cambridge. Dreher writes:

[Orr] told the audience that conservatives should not make the mistake of thinking that wokeness is shallow. No, he said, it’s deep, and it’s a very serious threat to the free society. Only the State is strong enough to regulate all this and to defend liberty and sanity. Conservatives would be foolish to think that we can get by with modest responses to this threat. 

 Orr added that conservative attempts to reform existing institutions have generally come to naught. We need to create counter-institutions and networks, so our ideas can thrive.

Read Dreher's column for more ideas on how to build defences against the woke tide that, without a sustained effort, is sure to overwhelm society more assuredly than it has at present. He provides this update:

Should have mentioned the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and its Republican legislature, for going to war against the ghouls of the transgender industry. Here’s an article about how the state Attorney General ruled that transitioning children is a form of child abuse, as it certainly is. And here’s a story from the Texas Tribune about Jeff Younger, a father who lost a famous child custody battle, and whose son is now being medically transformed into a pseudo-female; Younger’s case helped move the Texas legislature to go after clinics that transition children. The Tribune, a liberal paper, writes of Younger and his GOP supporters as a villain, but you still get the idea that it was the grassroots that compelled Texas GOP politicians to act.

This holy war is utterly modern

But this matter of the culture war that is raging in the West, and globally by means of social media and the media generally, is set in the context of the poorly recognised East-West culture war that added fuel to President Putin's push to preserve for the Russian people the "holy ground" of Ukraine.

International analyst and broadcaster Stan Grant relates how the head of Russian Orthodoxy, Patriarch Kirill, had long ago joined forces with Putin in reviving the concept of a "Russian World". Grant quotes political scientist Lena Surzhko Harned as describing as a joint mission of church and state, "of making Russia a spiritual, cultural and political centre of civilisation to counter the liberal, secular ideology of the West".

 It's true that the godless nature of much of life in the West has transformed the 'free society" ideology that blossomed after World War II from a vibrant forest tree into a desiccated desert shrub that increasingly relies on intolerance and social division to achieve its goals. Christian principles of forgiveness, charity towards those with opposing ideas, and community rather than individualistic autonomy, are absent from a large part of social discourse.

Grant quotes others with an understanding of the Russian mentality to explain why Putin made his history-shattering move:

Vladimir Putin believes the West is decadent. He believes the West has turned away from God and he is a defender of the faith. 

Is Putin truly a believer? That's not the question. This is not personal, it is political. This holy war is not medieval, it is utterly modern.

It is about identity in a world in flux. Where faith is turned inward and apart from symbolism or ritual is increasingly pushed out of public debate.

Religion and politics scholar Jocelyne Cesari has traced the evolution of secular modernity in her book, We God's People. We have now reached a point in Western Europe, she says, where "this world is all there is".

There is a division between the immanent and the transcendent — between what is Caesar's and what is God's. The immanent is the realm of politics. 

Believers, Cesari says, "are expected to keep the transcendent to themselves". She says the nation is now "the superior collective identification" overtaking "religious allegiances".

In his book, A Secular Age, philosopher Charles Taylor says: "Modern civilisation cannot but bring about a death of God."

Taylor says we have seen the rise of an "exclusive humanism". We have swapped God for a "culture of authenticity, or expressive individualism, in which people are encouraged to find their own way, discover their own fulfilment, 'do their own thing'."

German philosopher Max Scheler also wrote about this — how we risk becoming alienated from one another, isolated from the world "degraded and depersonalised".

We struggle to deal with faith in our public discourse. When it arises it usually centres around scandal in the church, or abusive priests, or questions of morality and discrimination.

We miss the deeper questions of how faith can still shape our world and — when misused or exploited — can have devastating consequences. 

Cesari says religion survives in the nation state. [...] Religion can be used as the "foundation of identity". She cites political Islam as an example of how faith can emerge as "a modern technique of governmentality". The Islamic world has adopted — or had forced upon them — Western notions of the modern state but faith remains critical to public life and identity.

Radical Islam takes it even further, striking back at the West. Osama bin Laden's September 11,2001, terrorist attacks on the United States shook the West from its complacency that the world had moved on from wars of religion.

Putin in his own way is not so different to Osama bin Laden, someone for whom faith was a weapon. As bin Laden cited the 11th century Crusades and Putin seeks a return to the 10th century idea of holy Russia, both have reacted to a modern world. Both products of it, both seeking to remake it.

The West provoked Putin into making war because it refused to be sensitive to the cultural and spiritual repulsion felt by Russians - and Ukrainians, too, since they are more conservative on social and moral issues than Western Europeans, meaning they have held firm to the life-affirming Christian way of life of their ancestors.

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published. 

Why the consecration of Russia to Mary?

Mary at the birth of the Church, and with us still. Image: Source

Next Friday, Pope Francis will use a special prayer to ask Mary the mother of Jesus to pray to her son, to God, for Russia. He will consecrate Russia to "the immaculate heart" of Mary.

This action needs some unraveling, to understand both as to what is meant by Mary's "immaculate heart" and on the issue of why the Church would pray to Mary instead of the God directly. 

First, the matter of intercessory prayer. God wants us to ask Him for what we need. For that reason, Christians have a well-rooted practice of praying for each other, and the tradition is that even those who have died are part of the ongoing life of the Church. They continue to be members of the mystical body of Christ, the concept so central to Paul's teaching. Those on earth pray to God that those who have died are quickly received into heaven; then those in the presence of God add their pleas for divine help to the prayers of their brothers and sisters in need still on earth.

Second, Mary's role in the Church. Simeon's prophecy created the image of Mary participating fully in our redemption, saying that her heart would be pierced with a sword.  Luke notes twice that Mary kept all the sayings and doings of Jesus in her heart. Augustine highlighted how Mary did not have a passive role in the completion of God's plan as she had to cooperate with the Holy Spirit by applying her whole self. Mary was present at Pentecost, which marks the birth of the Church (Acts 1:14).

In the New Testament:

Elizabeth proclaims Mary blessed because she has believed the words of the angel; the Magnificat is an expression of her humility; and in answering the woman in the crowd, who in order to exalt the Son proclaimed the Mother blessed, did not Jesus himself say: “Blessed rather are they that hear the word of God and keep it”? [...] The Fathers understood His meaning, and found in these words a new reason for praising Mary. St. Leo says that through faith and love she conceived her Son spiritually, even before receiving Him into her womb, and St. Augustine tells us that she was more blessed in having borne Christ in her heart than in having conceived Him in the flesh.

By the 11th and 12th centuries Christians were acknowledging that Mary warranted special honour because of her spiritual attributes.

We honor Mary because of her office as Mother of God, and also the fact that she cooperated with God’s grace and God did something through her greater than—in fact, without Mary, there is no Jesus. There’s no Apostle Peter. There’s no Paul. There’s no nothing, there’s no New Testament, without Mary’s “Yes” to almighty God. Now, could God have chosen someone else? Absolutely! God could choose anybody wants to. But the bottom line is, He chose Mary and Mary said “Yes.”   

The Church examines the Magnificat, for example, to understand Mary's interior life, and it celebrates her joys and sorrows, her virtues, and her love for God and all those around her, which she shared with the early Church by continuing her participation in God's work.

Does not giving honour to Mary detract from our honouring God? Read on:

The Bible gives us basically two essential reasons why we honor some members of the Body of Christ more than others. Think of this: 1 Timothy 5:17 commands us to give “double honor” to the teaching elders. [...] So number one, we honor some members of the Body of Christ more than others because of their office.

But number two, we also honor them because of their holiness, or what God has done for them, in them, and through them. Well, the Blessed Mother’s a great example of that, because in Luke 1:48 she says—she prophesies under the power of the Holy Spirit—"All generations shall call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me." 

Mary is worthy of honour as the Mother of God, but her manner and the Church's practice—apart from some excesses of piety from time to time or in some cultures—has been to put God first and foremost: "... for the Almighty has done great things for me".

The term "immaculate" refers to God preserving Mary from the original sin that afflicts all of humanity, making us weak in the face of evil, with a tendency to seek our own desires rather than complying with God's plan for us. The Church has seen from scripture and the regard Christians all along have held for Mary, that given this evidence, it is reasonable to believe that God would deem it unbecoming for the Creator to come into the world by means of a mother who was anything less than perfect. 

That means her heart is able to be absolutely pure in its love for God and her human sons and daughters, with the words of Jesus on the cross, "Woman, here is your son", and to John, seen as standing for all, "Here is your mother" (John 19:26) having significance.

As to the particular event next Friday (March 25, Feast of the Annunciation):

In 1942, Pope Pius XII consecrated the whole human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The pope said that the intercession of Mary, already known as the queen of peace, could bring an end to the war ravaging Europe, Asia, and North Africa.  

In 1952, [with the grip of Soviet communism apparent in many forms], Pius XII issued an apostolic letter entrusting the Russian people to the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In 1964, Pope St. Paul VI offered a public prayer entrusting the whole human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Pope St. John Paul II offered several consecration prayers to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the most well-known and public was in 1984.

On March 25, 1984, he offered prayers of solemn consecration, which dedicated the world to Mary. While the pope’s text did not specifically mention Russia, some historians say that John Paul II privately added the words in his prayer. Bishops from around the world had been invited to join the consecration, and many did. 

According to some accounts, the pope was urged not to mention Russia by name in the public prayers of the 1984 consecration, because it would anger the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, who opposed the notion of Catholics consecrating their country to Mary, and because of Vatican efforts at political diplomacy with the USSR. 

Because of that omission, some Catholics have argued that Pope John Paul II did not actually consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary — and some Catholics continue to raise that objection. 

But after the consecration, Sister Lucia - the visionary who recorded the Fatima message from Mary - said several times that she believed the consecration request had been fulfilled. And in 2000, the Holy See said the consecration “has been done just as Our Lady asked”.

The new consecration is not a concession from the Holy See that the 1984 consecration was in some way insufficient, but this act will be more explicit, presumably naming Russia and Ukraine in the prayers themselves. 

[It's...] likely Pope Francis intends his prayers to be acts of renewal — pleas to God, and the Blessed Virgin Mary — in a time of great hardship, rather than making up for previous acts called into question. 

Honouring Mary as the Immaculate Heart gives us an example of how we as Christians should love. As Pope Paul VI said:

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary shine before the eyes of all Christians as the model of perfect love toward God and toward our fellow beings; may it lead them toward the Holy Sacraments by virtue of which souls are cleansed from the stains of sin and are preserved from it. May it also stimulate them to make reparation for the innumerable offenses against the Divine Majesty. Lastly, may it shine like a banner of unity and a spur to perfect the bonds of brotherhood among all Christians in the bosom of the one Church of Jesus Christ, which “taught by the Holy Spirit, honors her with filial affection and piety as a most beloved mother.” 

On 19 November 1959, Bishop Patrick O'Boyle of Washington, D.C. consecrated the United States to the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

ACT OF CONSECRATION OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

Most Holy Trinity:  Our Father in heaven, who chose Mary as the fairest of your daughters;  Holy Spirit, who chose Mary as your Spouse; God of Son, who chose Mary as your Mother; in union with Mary, we adore your majesty and acknowledge your supreme, eternal dominion and authority. Most Holy Trinity, we put the United States of America into the hands of Mary Immaculate in order that she may present the country to you.

Through her we wish to thank for you the great resources of this land and for the freedom, which as been its heritage.  Through the intercession of Mary, have mercy on the Catholic Church in America.  Grant us peace.  Have mercy on our president and all the officers of our government.  Grant us a fruitful economy born of justice and charity.  Have mercy on capital and industry and labor.  Protect the family life of the nation.  Guard the precious gift of many religious vocations.  Through the intercession of our Mother, have mercy on the sick, the poor, the tempted, sinners – on all who are in need.

Mary, Immaculate Virgin, our Mother, Patroness of our land, we praise you and honor you and give our country and ourselves to our sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.  O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pierced by the sword of sorrow prophesied by Simeon, save us from degeneration, disaster and war.  Protect us from all harm.  O Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, who bore the sufferings of your Son in the depths of your heart, be our advocate.  Pray for us, that acting always according to your will and the will of your divine Son, we may live and die pleasing to God. Amen. 

A concluding thought: Pray for the people of Russia and Ukraine every day. Pray, too, for peace in war zones all around the world.

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.