Niceness, The New Religion

William Hogarth, "In The Madhouse"

From Father Z’s blog, a barely believable – if we lived in normal times – story about a canadian Catholic school. In said Catholic school the idea of having a crucifix in every classroom was in the past considered – for reasons I do not even want to think about – not really necessary. I know, I know…..

This year, this state of things changed and every classroom was equipped with his crucifix.

Thinking that this would make some explanation necessary (a crucifix: what will then that be, one wonders….), a teacher (and principal of the school) decided to give some “explanations” to every class in the school.

The explanation centered about Jesus not having physically risen from the dead. Not only Easter, but the entire concept of divinity of Christ, and with that of Trinity, goes herewith out of the window as I can’t understand why God would decide that he can resurrect, but prefers not to and tells us a lie about it instead, clearly allowing this lie to be believed for some 20 centuries before a Canadian minus habens comes along.

Because this is, according to one brave girl who immediately challenged him, what is all about: Jesus “never resurrected”, the whole thing is “like a metaphor that you follow” and, you know, “people have taken the Bible too literally”.

In the view of this “enlightened” teacher in a Catholic school, the “moral” that Jesus died is right but hey, “the story is wrong”. The man is, at this point, launched toward the creation of a completely new religion and dutifully delivers: “Because He died in our honour we should be nice to each other,” or if you prefer to put it another way “the crucifix represents helping others” and when the students look at it “that’s all it’s supposed to mean”.

And there, a new religion is born. This new religion, “BeNiceAnity”, has a vague flavour of Christianity and actually can even tolerate a Crucifix, but not without an explanation that says: “hey, don’t take it all too literally with this Christ: the chap is still six feet under (at which Mundabor would have asked: “where’s the body? Who has stolen it? Who has lied about it? Why?”) and you must just relax, be nice to each other and try to be helpful” (and, no doubt, inclusive).

I don’t want to think what private issues a man can have to want to blasphemously offend Christ in this way, in his role as teacher, in a Catholic school, but one doesn’t have to be a genius to see that they must be huge.

One would wish the chap all the best in his chosen new professional path. Whatever that is, I’m sure he’ll be better at that than he was at teaching.

Mundabor

There’s Hope For The Dominicans

El Greco - "St. Dominic In Prayer"

The Dominicans are my favourite Order. If I had ever felt a vocation, it would have been to become a Dominican.

The Dominicans are closely identified with the Inquisition, and this already makes them very special to my eyes. They are also closely identified with the Rosary, which makes them even dearer to me. When I hear them called domini canes, I can’t but find it a compliment.

It would appear that, after going through a phase of disorientation in the dreadful years following Vatican II, the Dominicans are now reacting in a different way than the Franciscans and the Jesuits and that they are, thankfully, recovering their identity and tradition.

Apart from anecdotical evidence (I mention here a brilliant commenter on another blog, and the author of the also brilliant domine, da mihi hanc aquam blog; a blog which has even made it in the very exclusive list of blogs linked to from this site 😉 ), the video below (taken from the above mentioned blog) seems to show that things are going – at least in the English province – in the right direction.

What striked me in this video were the following elements:

1) not one word on “social justice”, or “social issues”, or the like. Not one. Can’t imagine it’s a coincidence.

2) Not one second in which someone of them appears in anything than their traditional habit.

3) Average age (at least of the people appearing in the video) is rather low; there seem to be no huge difficulty in attracting vocations.

4) Strong accent on prayer and study. Strong accent on intellectual work. No effeminate emotionalism. God bless them.

5) Mission clearly given as the one of helping people to get to heaven, not helping people in their social instances or grievances.

6) At 8:11 a beautiful altar is shown, in the process of being aspersed with incense. The altar is clearly ad orientem. This looks like the beginning of a Tridentine Mass to me. Again, I can’t think this is a coincidence.

I can’t say I liked everything (well the white socks for starters 😉 , but a couple of rather naked, ungainly-looking Novus Ordo altars were not entirely pleasing either), but if this video is – as it must be – representative of the way the English Dominicans want to be perceived and therefore of what – irrespective of the problems they may still have – they want to become, then there is reason to be optimistic about their future.

You can compare with the Jesuits (say: here, here, here, or here) and see the differences for yourself.

Kudos to the English Province of the Dominicans, then, and best wishes to them in their chosen vocation.

Mundabor