The Importance of Humanism to Christianity

Carravaggio's "The
Entombment"--a fruit of
Renaissance humanism  

When Pope Francis announced to the Italian Church at their national synod in Florence this past November that there was a need to bring the idea of humanism to the front again, many of the Katholik Krazies went even more than usually berserk.  To those ignorant of the history of our Christian faith the idea of “humanism” is somehow opposed to authentic Christianity when, in fact, it is an essential component of our Christian faith.  The earliest writer on Christian humanism is no one less than the Apostle Paul himself who in his letters gives us a foundation for a philosophical view on what it means to be truly human.  For Paul we arrive at the fullness of our human nature when we

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8.)

The key to realizing full human potential is found in kenosis, the emptying of self and self-interest in favor of conforming ourselves to Christ.  In orthodox Christianity, we see Christ to be the ideal human person and to the extent that we conform ourselves to him even as he conforms himself in obedience to the Will of the Father, we reach our potential to be truly human.  This is very counter-intuitive and certainly runs contrary to most of the various humanisms advanced by the philosophers of the ancient world.  Christianity has always taken a remarkably unique approach to the human ideal and the understanding of what makes us human.  Both the various secular humanisms that have emerged since the Enlightenment and the perspectives offered by the other great world religions have some similarities with Christian humanism but also are, at the core, essentially different.  This is because Christianity begins with an understanding of the Godhead that differs not only from the religions of the East but from the other two Abrhamic faiths, Judaism and Islam.  Christianity sees the human person as having the potential to share in the Divine Nature.  The Church Fathers, notably Iranaeus and Athanasius, went to far as to speak of our being sharers in the Divine Nature when we so conform ourselves to Christ that we surrender our own selves to indeed become essentially united to Christ with Christ being the life-principle within us.  “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ Jesus who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:11).    “God became human so that humans might become God”—a statement which, were it not from the fathers, would seem to be counter to all Christian orthodoxy but which has become a cornerstone of all genuine Christian anthropology or humanism ever since. Beginning with Paul, the authors of the Christian scriptures—both Gospels and Epistles—laid the foundation for a genuine understanding of what it means to be truly human.  The parables of the Good Samaritan, the Pharisee and the Publican, Lazarus and the Rich Man, The King and his two debtors, The man whose barn wasn’t big enough, Lowest Seat at the Banquet, The persistent widow, the Last Judgment and others all give us insights into human nature at its best and at its worst. 

It was Origen, and probably even more, Tertullian, the second/third century theologians who organized much Christian thought into a philosophical system, who gave us the more abstract or philosophical view of human nature—though Origen tended to be a bit over-positivist with his belief that all will eventually be reconciled to God, and Tertullian a big over negative with his objection to the idea that sins committed after baptism cannot be forgiven.  Perhaps for us in the West, the great Christian humanist is Saint Augustine. 

Augustine is, at least for us in the Western Church, the great Christian thinker who takes the Scriptures and the Apostolic Tradition and tries to weave a coherent Christian theology.  His appreciation for human nature is, I think, spot on—in this regard I am much closer to Pope Benedict than to most other Catholic thinkers.  Augustine is often seen as too negative, even sin-obsessed but sin, for Augustine, is not his topic but only the foil against which we can see Grace.  Augustine is the Doctor Gratiae, (the Doctor of Grace).  While Augustine thinks that the human person without grace (should such a creature be even conceivable much less a reality) is pretty much the bottom of the barrel, transformed by Grace the human person mirrors the God in whose image and likeness we are created.  Augustine was an extensive writer who looked not only at the human person in se (I love Latin except for Mass) but in our place in The City of God and in the context of the City of Man.   What I like about Augustine’s humanism is that it is not iced with that overly sweet frosting of a supposed innate human goodness but recognizes the far more bitter-sweet ambivalence of the human heart as it is caught between our natural concupiscence and supernatural Grace. 

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  The answer is not “The Shadow” but Saint Augustine.  My friend, the late theologian Monika Hellwig, used to rag me about my Augustinian leanings but I just find him to be the most honest and soul-searching of Christian writers.  

Over the Middle Ages a number of Christian authors continued to deal with the subject of a Christian humanism.  The Early and Central Middle Ages was not a great time for intellectual life in the West, though Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job is highly significant for our topic.  The Renaissance of the 12 century however opened the flood gates of Christian literature and crucial—but conflicting—approaches to Christian humanism were taken by Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard.  The dispute between Bernard and Abelard also marks the divide between the Fathers and the Scholastics and while Bernard may have won the day it was Abelard who would ultimately win the war.  While Thomas Aquinas and the other Scholastic theologians shied away from embracing Abelard by name or by explicitly affirming his more radical ideas, they embraced his Aristotelian method and did, in fact, come up, as Abelard did, with a much more positivist anthropology than Augustine and most of the Patristic tradition had.  Personally, I think the Scholastics’ positivism regarding the human person have provided the seedbed for the semi-pelagianism that has plagued our Catholic tradition ever since.  But then Monika Hellwig always chided me for my attachment to Saint Augustine. 

Christian humanism exploded in the Renaissance with such figures as Dante Alighieri, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), Nicholas of Cusa, Geert Groote, Desiderius Erasmus, Basilios Bessarion,  Baptist of Mantua, John Colet, Thomas More, Giles of Viterbo and many others.  The impact of these thinkers in turn created the magnificent baroque and rococo art with Donatello, Durer, Ghirlandaio, Grunewald, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Tiepolo, Caravaggio and so many more.  Indeed, without humanism the renaissance would not have hatched and the Tridentine Catholicism which so many hail as the apex of Catholic faith and culture would have been—at best—a pallid and ghostly shadow of the energetic and animated revival it was in its day. 

Hopefully Pope Francis’ call for a new humanism can trigger the same energy that was unleashed in the Renaissance.  I will look at Francis’s suggestion in an upcoming post, but I think my next posting will bring you some recent comments by one “FrankieB”—a Katholik Krazie if there every was one and let you see just what we faithful Catholics have to deal with when the self-appointed magisterium gets on our tail.  

The Heart of A Shepherd and the Heart of a Lion

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone
Cordileone translates as "heart of
a lion." Lions have been known
to eat sheep.

I had the opportunity not too long ago to visit friends who have recently moved to Dallas Texas and bought a lovely home in a rather posh suburb.  Not that the house was overdone, but it was a bit like staying with J.R. and Sue Ellen Ewing.  While the cook prepared dinner, we settled into Andy’s “Den”—a book lined room with Persian rugs, walnut paneling, and a brass chandelier that looked like it had been stolen from Hampton Court.  Andy pressed a button and the bookshelves slid back to reveal a fully-stocked wet bar.  “It’s called a ‘Baptist Bar’,” Andy told me, “because when the Pastor or one of the church deacons would come to dinner, it would be hidden by the ‘books.’  They aren’t real books, you see” he said pointing at the shelves,” just blocks of wood pointed to look like old books.  What would a Southern Baptist do with books anyway?  Down here, books are for burning.” 

A ‘Baptist Bar;’ I loved it.  I was relating this story at lunch when one of my colleagues—a priest—mentioned that he had once done a wedding between one of his then parishioners, a Catholic,  and the daughter of a Mormon Bishop.  “The Catholic family had to pay for the band and for the booze,” Father said.  “But the groom’s father—an immigrant from Italy—said that he couldn’t invite his friends and relatives to a ‘wedding’ where there was no dancing and nothing (alcoholic) to drink.  In the end, the Mormons were out there on the dance floor having a great time.”  But did they drink, I asked.  “Well, let me tell you,” Father responded.  “I got to be friends with the bride’s uncle and his wife and they were knocking back gins and tonic all evening.  They said that gins and tonic are the Mormon beverage of choice because you can always claim that you are drinking club soda, and who’s to know.” 

This led another colleague of mine to tell of his experience at Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian College in the Chicago suburbs that has some very strict policies set forth in its ‘Community Covenant’ to which all students, members of the faculty, and employees must conform.  These policies are not unreasonable for a Christian institution and they limit the use of alcohol both on and off campus and proscribe use of illicit substances, non-marital sex (gay or straight), pornography, withcraft, plagiarism, obscene or vulgar language, as well as more difficult things to pin down such as pride or jealousy.  In 2004 Wheaton terminated the teaching position of Joshua Hochschild when Hochschild, a professor of Medieval Philosophy, converted to Roman Catholicism.  Wheaton President at the time, A. Dwayne Litfin, said that Roman Catholicism was incompatible with Wheaton’s dedication to Evangelical Principles on the sovereignty of Scriptural Revelation.  (Hochschild disagreed but moved on to teach at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg Maryland—a Catholic equivalent of Wheaton’s sectarian fortress.  By the way, while both Wheaton and Mount Saint Mary’s are somewhat closed-circuit institutions, unlike some other “bubble schools” they have respectable academic reputations and should not be short-sold on that account.)  Four years after Hochshild moved on, tenured professor Kent Gramm left Wheaton for Gettysburg College rather than disclose the reasons for his divorce to school officials.  All this is to demonstrate the strict standards that Wheaton sets for the members of its academic community.  But the reality of where people are at and what they do under the dark of night, according my colleague, is quite different.  To find out more, I called a friend of mine with whom I used to teach and who is a Wheaton alumnus, whose elder son also graduated from Wheaton and whose younger boy is currently a student there.  “I think there is less promiscuity on the campus there than there is at most schools, but it’s no “virgin territory.”  Whether you are gay or straight, there is plenty of opportunity to make connections.  As for the alcohol, I think it is well hidden, but as much, if not more, than at a place like Princeton.  Drugs—I don’t know.  From what I hear there are some—there are always some—but it is pretty much in the shadows and not talked about much.”

At the end of the day, it is all about the mystery of sin and grace. Where there is sin—and there will always be sin—there will also be grace and in ever greater measures.  We don’t sin so that grace will be prevail, but despite our moral principles, the reality of life is that there are—at the end of the day—no blacks and no whites.  As attributed to Cardinal Newman: “none of us are as good as we should be or as bad as we could be.” 

I am not writing about Baptists or Mormons or Wheaton College—or even Cardinal Newman—but about Archbishop Cordileone and his insistence that all faculty and staff at the four High Schools run by the Archdiocese of San Francisco both agree and, in their personal lives, conform to a policy statement that declares same-sex marriage, sex outside of (heterosexual) marriage, masturbation, pornography, artificial insemination, and other forms of “artificial reproductive technology” are “gravely evil.”  We need standards to be set.  I don’t have a problem with that.  It is up to the Church to set the standards for its members—and for those engaged in its mission even if they are not members.  I have no problem with that.  These are Catholic teachings and I have no problem with that. 

What I do have a problem with is when we expect people to live up to the standards.  Some of us will, some of the time.  All of us will, at one time or another, fall short of the standards.  That is the sin part of the equation.  But this isn’t Wheaton College; this is the Church of Jesus Christ.  When a person falls short of the standards, we accept the grace to get back up—and that can only be done with the help of a loving community—and brush ourselves off, and get back on track until we fall again.  That’s the grace part of the equation.  So when an Archbishop teaches the Church entrusted to his care: this is right, this is wrong, that is his job.  (He may, of course, get it wrong and that is another problem, but it is his job to teach the truth as he understands the truth.) But it is not his job to arm himself with a club to beat down the sinner who stumbles and falls. The policy statement set forth by Archbishop Cordileone is precisely that.  It gives him the grounds to fire anyone who fails to live up to, in his personal life, the ideals set forth by the Catholic Church, when a Bishop’s mandate is for the Shepherd to bring the sinner safely home.  But what about the person who falls over and over and over again?  The person who just doesn’t get it.  The person who just keeps sinning?  “And how often must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Seven times?”  I think we all remember the answer to that question. 

A priest I know, a man of good heart but a congenital idiot when it comes to theology, gave a sermon some years ago about “The Good Shepherd.”  “A Shepherd,” he told his flock, “when confronted with a lamb that will not heed his directions, must sometimes break the leg of the lamb.  He then carries the lamb on his shoulder until the leg heals and this creates a bond of dependency that ties the sheep to its shepherd.  There are times,” this worthy priest said to his parishioners, “that I will have to break your leg to teach you to follow me as I lead you home to safe pastures.”  Whooo boy, where do we even start?  I don’t recall Jesus using that particular example in his teaching about Good Shepherds.  We don’t need Shepherds—mitered or otherwise—who go around breaking the legs of their sheep: even if for good purpose.  If only we could make people be good!!!  But we have the more difficult task of calling one another to the change of heart without breaking a leg or firing the lost sheep.

More Thoughts on Pope Francis, A Bridge Too Far, and The Two Church Problem

It's about the future 

Sitting at breakfast this morning with a colleague we got talking about various priests we knew over the years and found out we both have great admiration for the Society of Saint Columban, a Society of secular priests who work in the missions.  When I was a kid our house was always filled with Columbans and they were all great guys, but there was one in particular who was just the best priest I ever knew—Father Al Buckwalter.  Unfortunately when Father Buckwalter finally got to the foreign missions—his dream—, in Chile, he died in a motorcycle accident after only about six months.    I think the reason I love Pope Francis is that he epitomizes the sort of Church that Father Buckwalter represented to me as a kid.  He was a priest who never judged people but could see the good in everyone.  It was the heady days when Vatican II was in session and this priest represented that optimism that the Good News of Jesus Christ was the key to a better world.  I am not saying that he was naïve and could not see the flaws in human nature—but only that he lived and treated people like he really believed that God’s grace could and would triumph over sin both on the personal and societal levels. 

When I look at the two Churches that have grown up side by side in the fifty years since the Council, I think this is the key difference between them.  I had mentioned that the one Church—a holdover from the Neo-Scholastic centuries of the Reformation/Counter-Reformation period through the Reaction/Recovery from the effects of the French Revolution—has never accepted the fundamental paradigm shift represented in the Second Vatican Council.  That paradigm shift is attributable to the ressourcement theologie of the inter-war period in which theologians such as Yves Congar, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and others went to the pre-Scholastic Church Fathers and recovered the Patristic heritage for our modern age. 

It would be simplistic to claim—but essentially true nevertheless—that the patristic theology has a far more positive anthropology than the Neo-Scholastic.   The patristic heritage certainly acknowledges the reality of sin and dysfunction.  I myself am a huge fan of Saint Augustine and nobody but nobody in the Christian tradition calls out sin like Augustine did.  Yet, despite his intellectual appreciation for the frailties of our human nature, Augustine is known as the Doctor Gratiae—the Doctor of Grace. For Augustine the emphasis is not sin, but grace; sin is merely the foil by which we can see the operation of grace. 

I think that perhaps the inability of Pope John Paul II to see the dangers of the direction in which he took the Church—in his allowance of the anti-Vatican II Church to take root and even thrive inside the Conciliar Church—was that he himself was steeped in the Neo-Scholastic philosophy and theology of the pre-conciliar era.  I am not saying that he endorsed the survival of the counter-Church or that he did not endorse the basic direction of the Second Vatican Council, but only that he failed to see the problem of permitting this alternative ecclesiology of those for whom the Council was problematic. He himself didn’t have the monolithic theological models usually associated with Neo-Scholasticism.  He was certainly was open to the ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue of the Council, indeed he was not always as precise in his actions vis a vis other Churches and other religions as some thought that perhaps he should have been.  John Paul also had no personal enthusiasm for the pre-conciliar Liturgy, he merely permitted its revival to keep the peace with those who were being drawn out of the Church by the Lefebvrists and other schismatics.  He never celebrated, at least as far as we know, the usus antiquior and his own liturgical celebrations could be quite avant-garde with liturgical dance, adaptations to local cultures, and some minor but interesting deviations from the official rubrics.  However, when it came to his basic theology John Paul’s Neo-Scholasticism came through loud and clear.  In much of his writing and speaking there was a strong emphasis on sin and the sinfulness of the human person that appealed very much to those on the neo-Traditionalist end of the spectrum. 

Pope Benedict XVI was, in many ways, the reverse image of his predecessor.  Benedict had been, in his life as a theologian, a proponent of the nouvelle theologie. There was nothing of the Neo-Thomist in him and he was—and I have always admired him for this—a strong Augustinian in his theological framework.  His encyclicals and his addresses were far more positivist than those of his predecessor.  He was, however (and so typically German), far less flexible on the connection of theory and practice.  As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict had been seriously concerned about John Paul’s imprecision in papal dealings with non-Christians and even with non-Catholics.  (The position given to the Archbishop of Canterbury at Benedict’s installation as Pope was markedly different than how that prelate and his predecessors had been ceremonially treated under John Paul II who had always accorded the Anglican Primate a position roughly equivalent to how he treated the various patriarchal representatives of the Orthodox Churches.  On the other hand, Benedict’s precision in these matters puts a very different spin on his giving Holy Communion to Brother Roger, the Protestant Prior of the Taizé Community.)  Benedict, unlike his predecessor, has a strong personal attachment to the pre-Conciliar Rites.  While he never celebrated them during his papacy—at least publicly—he had as a Cardinal been very involved in the Abbey of Fontgombault’s conferences on restoring the old rite.  As Pope he widely extended permission for the use of the pre-conciliar rites even to the point of usurping the authority of local bishops in their diocese to regulate the liturgical usages.  He hoped, I think somewhat naively as an academic might, that the revival of the pre-conciliar rites alongside the Liturgy of Paul VI might in some way create a hybrid rite that would moderate the excesses of each.  Instead, of course, it seems only to have further polarized the liturgical disputes.  My own read on Benedict’s liturgical preferences is that they are not due to his theological convictions but rather to his ardent passion to preserve the cultural heritage of the Europe in which he was raised and which has been so culturally devastated first by Hitler’s crude efforts to create and impose on his conquests a sort of Nazi Art Deco and later by the equally soulless post-modernism and secularism of the last sixty years.  Like the music of Mozart to which Benedict is so deeply attached, the Baroque represents to him the epitome of Western culture.  His garish refurnishing of the Papal Apartments from the elegant simplicity of Paul VI (retained by JPII) to the heavy gilt of the reigns of Pius XII and John XXIII along with his penchant to raid the sacristy for the discarded remnants of his gloriously reigning predecessors, like his conviction that the 20^th century produced no great music, just screamed “Bavarian bourgeois.”  But in this fascination with the antique he validated the efforts of those who thought they could bypass the Conciliar Catholicism of the last sixty years and remain comfortably within the Catholicity of the Church. 

Now along comes Pope Francis who is utterly indifferent to the antiquarianism of Benedict and who doesn’t share the pessimism of John Paul II and we have a problem.  A segment of Catholicism cannot identify with this Pope.  “I am a Catholic, but I don’t have a Pope” is becoming a rallying cry for a gamut of folk that range from climate-change deniers to Baltimore Catechism enthusiasts to Libertarians to fans of Palestrina and Tallis.   Even such recent bastions of Catholicism as Christendom College and the Cardinal Newman Society are teetering.  Rumors are starting to rise that Benedict’s resignation was “coerced” and thus he is still the valid Pope—his aide-de-camp, Archbishop (Gorgeous Georg) Ganswein has had to come out with several affirmations that Benedict himself recognizes Francis as Pope.  Many are wondering—and some are hoping—about what Cardinal Burke’s vow “to resist” Francis should he go too far might mean.  The pot is roiling.  There is considerable concern about the Cardinals Francis has appointed and his ability to shape the next papal election. The September address to a joint session of Congress could be telling.  The upcoming October second session on the Synod on the Family could tip the scales. In the end the worst of what might happen is what should have happened forty years ago—those for whom Vatican II represents unacceptable change need to pack up their birettas and mantillas, um I mean maniples, and go where they can be more comfortable.  Vatican II is here to stay.  Compromise was tried and it proved to be not only a bad choice but an exercise in futility.  We need to cherish our past as history but move into the future in pursuit of the Kingdom of God.  It is a kinder, gentler Church with Francis—a Church that is Rich in the Mercy of God 

A Katholic Krazie and An Old Heresy

Cornelius Jansen 

I knew it was a huge mistake when the new translation of the Roman Missal came out and the words of consecration were translated “for many” rather than “for all.”  (if you are interested in this, check the side bar for “pro multis” and that will link you to the four postings I did on this subject in 2011 and 2012.)  In the first place while “for many” is a literal translation of the Latin “pro multis” it is a faulty translation because it fails to translate the original Greek text, ‘οί πολλοί, from which the Latin is itself translated.  (The New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, like the remainder of the New Testament, were written in Greek.)  ‘Οί πολλοί means “the many”—an inclusive term signifying the vast multitudes of people.  We know it in English as “the hoi polloi” meaning the common run of humanity, although “the” here is a bit redundant. Greek, like English, has articles. ‘Οί is Greek for “the.”  Latin doesn’t have articles and so the Greek inclusive “the many” became the Latin restrictive “many.”  This has a huge impact for soteriology (the theology of salvation) as it implies that Christ did not die for all but only for some, namely those “many” (but not all) who were to be saved.  This proposition that Christ did not die for all was condemned by Pope Innocent X  in 1653 in the first salvo the Holy See fired against the Jansenist heresy. 

Jansenism, a heresy that stresses the fallen nature of humankind and overstresses the idea of the “election” of the saved, has never been completely wiped out; indeed it is very much the foundation for many of the Catholic neo-traditionalists ranging from the Krazies among the sedevacantists at Mount Saint Michael in Spokane to “Catholic” commentators like Michael Voris.  Jansenism is commonly said to have spread to America via the Irish clergy who came here in the 19^th and early 20^th century—and Irish Catholicism has in its blood a streak of Jansenism picked up from Irish clergy who studied in France during penal times.  But the real infestation of Jansenism came to America even before the Irish migration with émigré clergy fleeing the French Revolution. It found its American home in Mount Saint Mary’s, a seminary founded in 1808 by Father John Dubois and other French priests in the Catotctin Mountains of Maryland.  Jansenism must infest the old floorboards of “The Mount” as despite valiant efforts to erase it on the part of various deans and some faculty over the years it has managed to take root in the hearts of certain grads, and through them has spread to infect the faithful in various eastern dioceses that send their candidates to Mount Saint Mary’s for training.  The Diocese of Arlington Virginia seems particularly vulnerable to infection both in its priests and some of its more outspoken laity. 

Jansenism is basically “Catholic Calvinism.”  It is derived from the writings of Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), a theologian and Bishop of Ypres in what is today Belgium.  Flanders, the province in which Ypres is located, then was part of the seventeen provinces, a component unit of the Hapsburg Empire where the Eighty Years war was being waged as the Calvinists were trying to win their independence from their Catholic Habsburg rulers.  In the end Flanders remained under Hapsburg rule and Catholicism was restored, but through much of this period Flanders—like the northern provinces that would become the Netherlands—was dominated by Calvinism.  In the highly intellectual atmosphere of the Calvinist Republic of Ghent, certain points of Calvinist theology spilled over into Catholic circles and Cornelius Jansen’s theology of grace and predestination had a strong scent of Calvinism to it.  Jansen’s book, Augustinus, gave a Calvinist read to the teachings of Saint Augustine of Hippo—the great theologian of the Catholic West.  The resultant distortions of Augustine’s theology of Grace produced a conviction among Jansen’s followers that Christ only died for those who would accept his sacrifice, and did not die so that all might accept his Grace.  This same error was made by Calvin and became one of the distinguishing marks of Calvinism.  This distorted Catholicism was very influential in France in the 17^th century and even its condemnation by several popes did not lessen its influence. 

Jansenism persists today.  Katholic Krazy Mary Anne Kreitzer of Woodstock Virginia who tilts at the windmills of “liberal” Catholicism under the banner of Les Femmes recently published on her blog

Jesus warned about Gehenna more than anything else during his life on earth. He died to save people from it. The Mass (since the restoration of the millenial "for many" at the Consecration) is proof positive that ALL are NOT SAVED because Jesus could only die for the salvation of the many who would accept His sacrifice. Note that the bad thief got no guarantee of paradise. Did he repent in the end? Maybe. Let's pray he did, but we have no evidence of it.

Well, Ms. Kreitzer should read her bible as bit more assiduously as while Jesus certainly did warn us about Gehenna, he did not do so  nearly as much as he warned us about the false teachings of those scribes and Pharisees who were so confident in their own religiosity and despised those whose views were so narrow.  But it is interesting that not only does Ms. Kreitzer espouse the Jansenist doctrine that Christ did not die for all but only for those who would accept his grace, but she uses the faulty translation of the pro-multis to justify it.

A few months back I attended a funeral in upstate New York and the principle celebrant of the Mass—a cassock-wearing, biretta bedecked gentleman in his seventies—pointedly said “for you and for all” as he consecrated the chalice at the funeral Mass.  I chided him about this at the luncheon afterward and he took umbrage as he said: “I have no choice; I will not give in to heresy.  Christ died for all and we must never say otherwise.”  Father then pointed out to me that while one cannot say that all are saved, one must be uncompromising in the faith that Christ died so that all might be saved.  And—to my surprise—this priest is a graduate of Mount Saint Mary’s.  But must have been in better days.