The Thing

Some day I'm going to compile a list of all the neat things that come with becoming a Roman Catholic. High on the list, I think, is the fact that we have our very own Pope. Sometimes I'll sarcastically throw this out when talking with my Protestant or agnostic friends, but frivolity aside, there is something unique in having a visible head who can, at least according to belief, trace his predecessors back two millenia.

Anyway, the Pope is in the news.

Pope Benedict XVI will journey to a remote monastery in the Abruzzo region east of Rome next Friday to visit the mysterious icon, said to show the face of Christ...

In 1999, scientists from Bari University in southern Italy reported that the image had not been painted or embossed on the veil in any way that could be explained.

It's too early to make any papal predictions about this one, but it's interesting to note that the veil could be authentic. Further, I have little idea as to what will happen if the Pope gives the stamp of authenticity--which will surely occur far in the future. Why then do I mention this?

I just finished Hilaire Belloc's book Survivals and the New Arrivals, wherein he describes the enemies of the Roman Catholic Church. Human history is rife with examples of enemies of the Church, and, indeed, a Catholic reading thereof always notes 1) the state and mood of the Church and Her society which she has formed and 2) the state and mood of Her enemies. For the Church has been at war almost from day one, either from without, as in pagan Rome, or within, as with the early heretics and the reformation.

What is fascinating then about the particular period of history in which we now reside, is not the absence of enemies of the Church, but their ignorance of the Thing which they oppose. While the heresiarch has always been somewhat ignorant of the doctrine which he attacks, he has done so with the idea of perfecting the Church which holds this doctrine. Arius and Mohammed did not wish to destroy the Faith anymore than Luther or Calvin did. They all over-simplified truth until it became fallacious, thereby harming the Faith, but they did recognize the importance of the Church even as they disagreed with it. Moreover, this disagreement was formal; the heresiarchs of old were wise enough to know that the Church was not a thing to be ignored. It was, the Thing, much like it boasts the Pope.

The moderns are not so wise as they might claim. It is one thing to disagree with the Roman Catholic Church, as many intelligent men have done. It is quite another thing to pretend that an institution which has existed for two thousand years; which claims direct succession from Her Founder; which claimed the Authority to promulgate not only doctrine based on the Bible, but dared to bind the Bible itself, deciding which books were canonical and which were heretical; which possesses the most thorough and consistent philosophy known to man, and has done so for hundreds of years; which formed the now dying civilization of the West is entirely irrelevant.

Once aware of Christendom, one must either attack it or defend it. One may theoretically attempt to change it, but asking the Church to change doctrine is tantamount to attacking it, for Truth does not change. Prudent minds take a long time to decide which side to join, but intelligent minds always join the battle.

Belloc notes that it is difficult to confront the new heretics. Belloc would, and now I will, gladly debate with a Socialist such as Troutsky, who is courageous enough to be dogmatic. I cannot debate someone who chalks up the whole of Catholic philosophy as a "personal opinion" and fails to offer one in its stead. Many men have concluded, reluctantly, that one can never know anything for certain; but I rather doubt that at any other time so many have taken to be true what can never be proven so, nor bothered to re-visit the question. I do not know the cure for such intellectual sloth.

The object of modern Catholic apologetics then, is not to explain why modern man is wrong, nor even to explain why we are right: it is to convince him that wrong and right do exist and that we must examine the nature of these powerful and concrete ideas. It was my vain hope that the affirmation that the stories concerning Christ were true would again interest people in the Thing. It now occurs to me that those who care little for wrong and right care nothing for history. I wonder what Chesterton would say to such men.