In an article that appeared in the Boston Globe Last Monday Dec. 3 on page A11 he criticizes the beatification of the 498 Spanish martyrs who were killed in the Spanish Civil War. The Pope said that these were "heroic witnesses of the faith who, moved exclusively by love for Christ, paid with their blood for their fidelity to Him and His Church." Carroll raises some doubt about this.
Political motivation
"The Pope was implying here that these martyrs were not motivated by politics, even as the Vatican insisted their beatification was not meant to be political either. But one could wonder."
What!!
It takes a lot to get me steamed but this does it. Carroll is accusing the Church of being political in its decisions to beatify and canonize. He believes that the canonization of Thomas More, for example, was done in order to inspire the Spanish to resist the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. Like they needed any more motivation than the fact that the Republicans were communistic and atheistic and thus out to destroy the Church!
But here’s the kicker. He states;
"One need not deny the individual innocence of the 498 ‘Spanish martyrs’ to understand that their celebration may have effects that are anything but innocent. The facts that these people were probably targeted merely for wearing cassocks or religious habits, and that they symbolize the many who fell to the grotesque excesses of Civil War violence are not enough to justify such glorification."
Was Carroll paying attention in seminary? The Church has been canonizing and beatifying martyrs for near 2000 years! To choose death instead of taking the easy way out during difficult circumstances is one of the best, if not the best, ways to affirm the truth of the Christian experience. It is an insult to these martyrs and to the Church to imply that politics were a motivating factor in a process of canonization that is long and meticulous.
Carroll's complaint
The bee in Carroll’s bonnet is the allegation that the Church supported Fascist regimes such as Franco’s during this time period. This is a subject that needs to be examined in context . Maybe Carroll has a legitimate point to make .(maybe) But that is a separate issue and the beatification ceremony should be kept out of the conversation. He should not be pointing a finger at the Church saying this act was political when he himself wrote this diatribe his own agenda in mind.
Carroll's agenda
Carroll, a former Catholic priest, has criticized the Church for a long time now. It seems the Church can’t make a move without him criticizing her and complaining about some heinous act in history allegedly committed by her. It appears he is angered by the fact that the Church won’t go away and won’t play ball with the secular Zeitgeist . It makes one think he is trying to make his former Catholicism disappear like an obsessive compulsive continually scouring a stain in his suit that won’t come out!
Church still perserveres
But despite the best efforts of Carroll and others the Church will keep on proclaiming the truth and holding up the witness of martyrs as examples to follow. It will not become a Latin version of neo paganism nor another branch of Unitarian Universalism. The Church will certainly not secularize. The Church is meant to be in opposition to these things, not part of them. James Carroll and his like won’t fare any better than the gates of hell.
1 comment:
Ah, I truly understand your ire. Imagine debating the merit of martyrs' deaths..
James Carroll isn't any more advanced in his thinking than the layman who walked out of the third and final year of Confirmation prep. He had committed himself to co-facilitating in this huge hall of kids long before that last time we adults all met with the RE Director to go over all the material to cover for the coming Sunday eve's first class. Now, with no time left to ask others to take his place, he was bowing out. Literally. His parting words were, "What? I don't get to teach? We're truly mostly facilitating what the kids say?? Oh, I can't work that way. I've never done it that way."
Neither had we.. but the kids themselves take responsibility for their choice of Confirmation in this final year of prep. That was explained to him, too, but he just hadn't heard it.
His attitude left his job for others to split between them, which left the kids at a bit of a loss, too. On the heels of losing one of our few priests to a Bishop's "corrective" overreaction to a 30-year old unsubstantiated accusation from the other coast of his having made a pass at a woman, it was a very unfair year for the kids. I hope never to see that sort of pain on a kid's face again.
What's the word I'm looking for, Mr. Carroll.. Humility? Obedience? Trustworthiness? If only those came in a can which we could send.
Those who leave the Church or their vocation, yet profess to know better than the Church, are not really in the Church's camp and thus really ought to go haunt someone else's tents.
Thank you, Frank. What say we two or more pray for Mr. Carroll; maybe the Lord will gather him in close and overwhelm him with a perpetual odor of incense wherever he goes, even underwater, so that he'll remember some of the holy joy that he has put away.
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