Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 11:24am

PopeWatch: Fundamentalism

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Carl Olsen at Catholic World Report gives a badly needed corrective to the Pope’s tendency to use the term “fundamentalists” to describe all purpose boogeymen:

This past week I spent several days with some Fundamentalists. Not only did I converse at length with these strange creatures, I ate meals with them and slept in the same house. They fed me well; they never threatened me; I never heard any of them refer other people as “infidels” or “disciples of Satan”. In fact, my family and I were treated like family. Which makes sense: I was spending time with my parents on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary.

As regular readers know—and I go into much more detail in Will Catholics Be “Left Behind”?—I was raised in a Fundamentalist home and attended a Fundamentalist Bible chapel co-founded by my father in the early 1970s. While we rarely, if ever, referred to ourselves as “Fundamentalists”, we were well aware of the term; it was impossible to escape in the 1980s, when Jerry Falwell—founder of the Moral Majority—became, in many ways, the face of American Fundamentalism. It was during that same time, on the heels of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, that the word “fundamentalism” took on an even darker quality, synonymous with religious violence in many circles. While “fundamentalism” in North America had long been equated with backwoods preachers, semi-literate Christians, and creationist trolls, the somewhat mysterious attachment of “fundamentalism” to “Islamic” seemed to be just as much about tarring certain American Christians as it did with distinguishing moderate and peace-loving Muslims from violent and extremist Muslims.

 
Put simply, the term fundamentalist has often become, in common parlance, a pejorative term used to effectively place certain groups into that fenced-off area reserved for haters, bigots, homophobes, and uncaring crazies who are either filled with blood lust or have already carried out acts of terror and “absurd violence”. On top of that, it is widely accepted in many quarters that all religions have some form of “fundamentalism”, and it must be sequestered off from those who practice peace, love, and understanding.
This is apparently how Pope Francis understands fundamentalism as well, based on remarks made on several occasions, most recently in his presser on the flight back to the Vatican from his time at World Youth Day in Krakow. As is often the case during such press events, his remarks were fragmentary and not entirely consistent. A reporter asked Francis about “the barbarous assassination of Fr. Jacques Hamel” in France and noted that the pope had recently insisted that all religions want peace; in fact, Francis had placed the blame on economic inequality: “When I speak of war I speak of wars over interests, money, resources, not religion. All religions want peace, it’s the others who want war.” That is, to put it nicely, nonsense (some commentators were harsher in their assessments). The reporter then asked: “So Holy Father … why do you, when you speak of these violent events, always speak of terrorists, but never of Islam, never use the word Islam?”

 

 
The answer given by Francis was painfully shallow and evasive:

I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here in Italy… this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law… and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence . . . and no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there’s everything. There are violent persons of this religion… this is true: I believe that in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We have them. When fundamentalism comes to kill, it can kill with the language — the Apostle James says this, not me — and even with a knife, no? I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence. This is not right or true.

Several observations could be made about the above excerpt; I’ll stick to three. First, Francis either doesn’t understand the simple question or he purposefully reshapes it into a straw man. Every Christian knows (or should) that everyone sins, and that Christians are capable of murder and other horrible sins. We are all deeply flawed and mortally wounded by sin. That is Basic Catholic Theology, just as it is basic common sense, as Chesterton noted in Orthodoxy: “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” When Mr. Smith murders Mr. Jones in a fit of jealous rage in a bar in Toledo, Ohio, we don’t think, “Ah, he is following his Christian beliefs to their logical conclusion”, or, “Ha! He merely took the Sermon on the Mount and actualized its inherent violent subtext”, but rather, “Alas, he just committed an act of objective evil and has broken one of the Commandments.”

Go here to read the rest.  Two of the strengths of Catholicism traditionally has been its precision with words and the intellectual rigor of its champions.  Alas, Pope Francis displays neither quality.  He is an intellectually sloppy Pope for an intellectually sloppy age.

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bill bannon
bill bannon
Monday, August 15, AD 2016 7:04am

I suspect that Catholic fundamentalism for Pope Francis is anything severe in both testaments of the Bible.
Christ is a Francis fundy here:
The Lament for Jerusalem.[i] 41 “As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 [j]For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. 44 They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
600,000 killed per Tacitus
1.1 million killed per Josephus…by whom?….by Rome physically but by God punitively and using Rome as His ax.
Did all go to hell? No unless they had other mortal sin. Most were too young in 33 AD to reject Christ but by the Sinai Covenant, those who hated God were to be punished to the 3rd and 4th generation physically not eternally ( Ezekiel…” the son shall not die for the sin of the father”).

Pinky
Pinky
Monday, August 15, AD 2016 9:54am

Olson’s article was a little hung-up on the two different meanings of fundamentalism: focus on core beliefs, and fanaticism.

He did have a link to a statement from Pope Benedict, and man, I miss him. Like you said, clarity of thought and clarity of words. The intellectual life of the Church isn’t proof in itself that the Faith is correct, but in conjunction with moral goodness it’s very persuasive.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Monday, August 15, AD 2016 12:54pm

Pope Francis has problems with Catholics who actually believe they are supposed to follow all the teachings of Christ in an uncompromising sort manner. He calls them rigid and fundamentalist and hence unmerciful. Islam has teachings from Mohamed which require a good Muslim to kill or maim the person who does not abide by the rules of their faith. In Pope Francis mind these are the same. This is roughly equivalent to a priest in confession shooting or stabbing the penitent for committing a sin. Pope Francis wields false equivalency like a gun mostly on law abiding Catholics. This is both evil and crazy.

Phillip
Phillip
Monday, August 15, AD 2016 2:37pm

Hate to hijack this thread but in need of your prayers. In Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Evacuated our house a little over 24 hours ago. At this point the house is still inches above water per photos. Asking your prayers for my house, family and others in LA who are suffering.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Monday, August 15, AD 2016 4:40pm

Prayers being said.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Tuesday, August 16, AD 2016 1:44am

Will be praying for you and your family Phillip.

CAM
CAM
Tuesday, August 16, AD 2016 11:24am

Phillip with 2 Ls, yes prayers are on the way. My sister-in-law texted me late last night re her sister with water stopping 8′ from her front door. She is one of the lucky ones.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, August 17, AD 2016 11:46am

Thanks for prayers. Water stopped 3 inches from house. Most of houses in our development took water but some like ours were spared. Power out so working with that as well as, unfortunately, some looters.

Was able to get to Mass today to offer thanksgiving. I ask for continued prayers for the power and that looters go away – or get eaten by alligators. 😉

CAM
CAM
Wednesday, August 17, AD 2016 3:13pm

And the cotton mouths! My sister-in-law was evacuated, but this afternoon they are back in their house in Gonzales. Thanks to the “Cajun Navy”. Looks like an island. Phillip, prayers continued.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Wednesday, August 17, AD 2016 3:59pm

Philip,
I rarely quote NAS…no one should….but “get urself a gun”…but to defend life but not to hunt mere thieves who are fleeing. You’ll be in prison. But armed robbers who are breaking in…Mossberg Mariner 12 gauge…coated against moisture rusting… ergo “mariner”. Birdshot # 7 1/2 will wreck the robber but not pass through the wall behind him. Double 00 buckshot …all buckshot will do both and worse. I don’t know of a 20 gauge with moisture protection. I picture your state as humid often.

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