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| Charlie's City of God |
No no, this isn't a 'lost story' of Raold Dahl, but rather another white-water rafting trip through Tim's brain. This story starts on Saturday, where our recessional hymn was Dan Schutte's 'City of God'. This has turned into an earworm recently, but things (as they do) took an interesting turn.
I read last night that
Commissar Archbishop Chaput has been called in to
clean up fill the episcopal seat in Philadelphia. I have many things that I
could say about Charlie Chaput, the more generous of which would be that he has done more to destroy Catholicism than a dozen Dickie Dawkins' could and that, apart from a cluster of jack-booted clerics and SSPX wannabe's, we shall all be the better by seeing the back of him. As you can see, even my own Jobian patience wears thin when it comes to Charlie.
Yet my frustration and anger at Charlie's machinations made me think about why the Vatican would have chosen Chaput for this post (because he's in line for scarlet and he gets results) which further led me to try and suss out how he thinks and why he has come to the place he has. As I have mentioned long ago, this is a common mechanism for me to better understand people.
All of this gets us to the City of God and how each of us perceives it. For Charlie (and those of his ilk) their vision seems to be that the City of God is a perfect gem, an ordered paradise replete with high walls and pearly gates to ensure that the 'evils of the world' are kept out. It is a stable, static place of holiness where the privileged are permitted to enter once they have proven themselves suitable. This is the City of the Church Militant, a temporal replica of Heaven where the ancient and hoary traditions are held and solemn masses are conducted by those worthy to be
in persona christi to venerate Christ (so, themselves after a fashion), until the Eschaton occurs and the Church Universal is united.
My view is...different.
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| My City of God |
I see the City of God as a place where the Body of Christ dwells. It is a raucous and ebullient thing, teeming with life. There are no walls or gates, but open arms and open doors. It is a place where the people of God of all sorts, colours and faiths come together and celebrate the truly awesome and evolution of creation which is God-with-us and God-in-us. It is here that the tears are turned into dancing and the cries of the poor are changed into the laughter of children. That's the City of God which I wish to build.
"No no, this isn't a 'lost story' of Roald Dahl..."
ReplyDelete## Well, it should be - though my first thought was of Charlie Brown, he of "Peanuts" fame.
As for Comrade "Commissar Archbishop" Chaput - no doubt the Comrade Archbishop will purge out the deviationist traitors and malcontents who so besmirch the good name of our glorious Party. The Comrade Chairman, while still a member of the Presidium, did not fail to put on record his distaste for deviationists. Will the Comrade Commissar think otherwise ? Not if he values his ushanka.
Tim, I think your description of the ecclesiology to which C. Chaput appeals is exactly right. You say, "For Charlie (and those of his ilk) their vision seems to be that the City of God is a perfect gem, an ordered paradise replete with high walls and pearly gates to ensure that the 'evils of the world' are kept out. It is a stable, static place of holiness where the privileged are permitted to enter once they have proven themselves suitable."
ReplyDeleteAnd that's a very good description of what Cardinal Bellarmine meant when he spoke of the church as a "perfect society." Interestingly enough, at Vatican II, when the constitution on the church came up for a vote, with its attempt to describe the church as the pilgrim people of God, Karol Wojtyla, later John Paul II, voted against that definition of the church, in favor of a draft of the constitution that used Bellarmine's language of the perfect society.
Chaput is right in line with John Paul II and Benedict in their attack on the ecclesiology of Vatican II and their attempt to reimpose Bellarmine's definition of the church. This is why he has been a rising star in the firmament of American Catholic churchmen.