Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 1:24am

PopeWatch: Dan Brown

 

Carl Olsen at The Catholic World Report gives his look at the Spadaro and Figueroa diatribe which appeared in La Civilta Cattolica :

 

My good friend Sandra Miesel, with whom I co-authored The Da Vinci Hoax years ago, was fond of starting out her talks about the mega-selling novel The Da Vinci Code by saying: “Dan Brown does get some things right: London is in England, Paris is in France, and Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter.” That quote came to mind over the weekend, while I was Facebooking with Dr. Chad C. Pecknold, who teaches systematic theology at Catholic University of America, about the recent essay “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism” by Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., and Marcelo Figueroa. Spadaro, who is editor of La Civiltà Cattolica (which published the piece) and is a close confidant and advisor to Pope Francis; Figueroa is “a Protestant and a close friend of Pope Francis” and editor of the Argentinian edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

Dr. Pecknold flatly stated that the two authors “have written an incendiary diatribe against an almost Dan-Brown-level caricature of the kind of politics they disdain.” And he is, I think, quite correct in that assessment. Recall how Brown’s novel was not and is not famous because of great writing or fascinating, current-day characters but because of audacious claims, clumsy but appealing conspiracy theories, and a veneer of sophistication. (For much more on that, see my March 2005 article “The ‘It’s Just Fiction” Doctrine’”.) Spadaro/Figueroa’s essay isn’t fiction, of course—which only makes its errors, dubious claims, hyperbolic criticisms, and hypocritical double standards all the more appalling. While several other authors—including Dr. Samuel Gregg here at CWR—have written some excellent responses, I want to highlight a few points I think are notable and worthy of consideration.

Spadaro/Figueroa’s essay seeks to impress with an air of learnedness, but sloppiness undermines it from the start. For example:

The term “evangelical fundamentalist” can today be assimilated to the “evangelical right” or “theoconservatism” and has its origins in the years 1910-1915. In that period a South Californian millionaire, Lyman Stewart, published the 12-volume work The Fundamentals. The author wanted to respond to the threat of modernist ideas of the time. He summarized the thought of authors whose doctrinal support he appreciated. He exemplified the moral, social, collective and individual aspects of the evangelical faith. His admirers include many politicians and even two recent presidents: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

No, Stewart did not “summarize” the thoughts of authors; he didn’t even edit the 12-volume sets of books. They were edited by A. C. Dixon and Reuben Archer Torrey, and consisted of 90 essays written by 64 authors from across a fairly wide spectrum of Protestantism—Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist, Anglican, etc.— including scholars who taught at Ivy League schools. The term “fundamentalist” was coined a few years later, and the break between what we now call “Fundamentalism” and “Evangelicalism” was both protracted and complicated, eluding broad strokes or simple explanations. What is important here, however, is that the “fundamentals” in question consisted of the following: the inerrancy of Scripture, the Virgin birth of Christ, substitutional atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the authenticity of miracles, and the second coming of Christ. There were also essays against Catholicism, socialism, Mormonism, evolutionism, and other belief systems.

The essays marked a significant line in the cultural and religious sands of the time, which were characterized by a combination of progressive politics, technocratic aspiration, bureaucratic growth, eugenics, racism (not only against blacks, but also Catholic immigrants), the social gospel, forms of Darwinism, and, in the realm of theology, the flood of historical-critical methodologies (mostly coming from Germany). It’s important to note that most of the radical politics and racial eugenics of that time flowed from liberal Protestants or former Protestants; put another way, the “social gospel” of the time reflected a use of religion for a very “this world” type of political project. All this to say that Spadaro/Figueroa don’t seem to understand that politics in the U.S. have always, in many and often bewildering ways, been shot through with forms of Christian rhetoric and appeal, and that seeking to isolate any one form and make it the Rosetta Stone for understanding American politics is doomed to be simplistic and sophistic.

 

Go here to read the rest.  PopeWatch is actually thankful to Spadaro and Figueroa.  They demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy which is so much at the core of this Papacy.  Pope Francis often attacks those he calls ideologues, which is ironic.  The salient feature of this current pontificate is an adherence to an ideology shared by most of the chattering classes of the West.  Spadaro’s and Figueroa’s screed was a primal scream at those who do not share this ideology, a scream devoid of facts, intelligence and truth.  Yep, they have much in common with Dan Brown.  Perhaps they should enter into a collaboration with him for his next Catholic bashing potboiler, and leave serious analysis to grownups, if such there be in the current Vatican.

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Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Wednesday, July 19, AD 2017 4:39am

You can find out a lot about a man by the company he keeps, as well as his enemies.
US bashing had long been fashionable in the Leftist world of Western Europe. It is as of they are proud of their stupidity and Argentina fits right in with them.
There had been nary a peep from the circles of Bergoglio or even himself about the Polish Bishops Conference refusal to give Communion to the remarried folks without an annulment or the Polish Government’s refusal to accept Muslim migrants.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, July 19, AD 2017 5:25am

The two common features of all things spewing from the idiot left and moron SJWs’ are stupidity and hypocrisy.

Their scholarship and truth are anything (true or not) that advances the narrative/revolution. The dolts don’t need (actually abhor) facts. They deploy distortions, exaggerations, false equivalences, omissions, outright lies to advance in the agenda.

However, mendacity and ignorance aren’t their worst sins. That is their proclivity to subvert the Gospel against the Truth.

trackback
Wednesday, July 19, AD 2017 12:37pm

[…] IS ACTUALLY THANKFUL TO SPADARO AND FIGUEROA.  THEY DEMONSTRATE THE INTELLECTUAL BANKRUPTCY WHICH IS SO MUCH AT THE CORE OF THIS […]

Jay Anderson
Wednesday, July 19, AD 2017 1:27pm

It’s because of the ecumenical ties that many Catholics — including JPII and Benedict XVI — fostered with like-minded pro-life evangelicals that I am Catholic today. Difficult for me to reach any other conclusion than that Bergoglio, Spadaro, Farrell, et al, would prefer that former-evangelicals-turned-Catholics like myself just didn’t exist.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Thursday, July 20, AD 2017 3:11am

It appears that Pope Francis really doesn’t much like being a Catholic or anyone who takes God seriously like orthodox Catholics and fundamentalist evangelicals. Schizophrenic outbursts by his henchmen only confirm the madness that has beset them as they try to suppress the voice of God coming from such infra dig upstarts. I guess we can be grateful for the unintended humor of it all.

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