Sat, 15 Feb 2014 | Cover | Page 11

Or, Adventures in Bluffing

to the ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ ritually sprinkled throughout papal documents, Catholic articles, blog posts by lay apologists, and in blog comments meant to defend the doings of the new catechism, the New Mass, or some other antic of the Church this side of its French Revolution. Those who make reference to this supposed ‘hermeneutic’ are assuming not only that the mere citing of it should be evidence of its legitimacy; they are also counting on a readership that is emotionally invested in the teachings of an extraordinary magisterium that has itself made mention of it. In fact, it would be unfair to assume that the average citer of the chimerical hermeneutic is consciously trying to pull a fast one on its reader. Rather, most of the time, the citer of the hermeneutic is himself as emotionally invested in the truth of this hermeneutic as his intended audience. In fact, it could well be that no one person—at this point, anyway—is bluffing consciously. It could be that everyone who presently makes mention of the ‘hermeneutic’ in order to defeat those who see rupture, really believes that there is continuity. Yet it’s still a bluff. After all: if it were not, that which is believed could be unpacked and explained.

By someone. Anyone.

It’s one thing to believe in continuity; it’s an entirely different thing to be able to

show it. Thus, we should also notice that while many believe there is continuity, and while many are happy to make mention of this hermeneutic, that no one is actually able to deal with the arguments that quite easily point to discontinuity. No one can explain how there is continuity, content as they are to simply cite the complaints and the contrary ‘explanation’.

We should see just how oddly anomalous this situation is. In and outside of the Vatican, the Catholic world is saturated with many intelligent and talented writers and intellectuals who have dedicated much of their time (and in some cases, their entire livelihood) to defending the truth of the Catholic faith. Many of these apologists are extremely deft and proficient at defending the tenants of the faith, and are quite skilled at showing why a particular Catholic position is correct. They are able to rationally defend sundry Catholic dogmas and teachings over Protestant criticisms, secular complaints, and heretical protestations. What is particularly admirable about many of these apologists is their ability to defend Church teaching without relying on Church pronouncement, in order to make their case. After all: to simply insist that a particular proposition is true because the church says it is true is not to actually deal with the proposition itself, but merely to gratuitously assert it again by other means. No skeptic would be convinced of the truth of a Catholic position because the Church said as much. They know quite well already what the magisterial authority says! The way to convince a skeptic is to show why a particular magisterial proposition is true independent of its endorsement by that same magisterial authority. Many apologists seem to realize this, and are quite good at presenting the Catholic teaching in ways that would appeal to the charitable seeker.

However, when it comes to defending the post-conciliar Church from charges of ‘rupture’, these same apologists seem happy to rely on The Bluff, and seem curiously unaware of how woefully inadequate this move appears to skeptics and seekers, and also how inconsistent it is with their own methodology otherwise. They seem strangely oblivious to the fact that their ritual reference to a hermeneutic is only convincing to those who already (blindly) believe to begin with that there is continuity, forgetting that the very issue under discussion is whether it exists at all, regardless of who believes in it. More oddly still, some of these apologists seem to incorrectly assume that the issue of continuity is merely an intervarsity affair, and therefore that it is only able to be ‘seen’ by the faithful, believing Catholic.

Alas, no doubt to the annoyance of these apologists, the Church is not esoteric. We should not need special glasses to see continuity, and it should not be inside information; more relevantly, we should be able to explain how there is continuity, and not just ritually assert its existence. If there is no explanation available—anywhere—this might well mean that it simply isn’t there. Indeed: it doesn’t take a Catholic to see this. Any casual observer ‘steeped in history’ can easily see the rupture brought on by the Council. For this reason, some of the most instructive and devastating arguments concerning the farce that is the ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ have come from—you guessed it—skeptics, protestants, and even unbelievers and atheists, writing on Catholic blogs.

One of the great things about blogs is that its discussion threads cannot so easily parse the washed from the unwashed, the good guys from the bad guys, the critics from the sycophants. Every assorted variety of seeker is free to make comments on a thread, provided that the host is willing to countenance their view. While any one post will usually draw the like-minded, it has the capability of including anyone who has a vested interest in the issue at hand. Much to the chagrin of a host, sometimes a blog post will draw devastating critique. I’ve read some outstanding comments by atheists on Catholic blog threads, charitably pointing out that Vatican II marked a total break from what came before. Responses to such comments have usually taken the form of: if you were Catholic, you’d see it differently.

Oh? Are we, like members of some Gnostic cult, led to a secret back room upon our conversion, and finally shown how reality is different than it seems? Are cradle Catholics therefore privy to this Secret Knowledge since birth? I think not. Our Church is boringly transparent, from the outside looking in. What the ubiquitous and farcical ‘hermeneutic’ citation shows us is that there is a certain unhealthy emotional attachment to the Faith among many of its members, and a corresponding lack of dispassionate analysis. This state of affairs, as far as I can tell, is the main reason why so many faithful Catholics seem incapable of rejecting what is impossible to defend: the hermeneutic of continuity. The fact that so much blind emotionalism exists among the faithful is unfortunate, not just because it stops otherwise intelligent people from seeing the truth, but also because it verifies the secularist’s supposition that Catholic folk are merely relying on emotion and not argument. It seems as if, when it comes to hermeneutic of continuity anyway, the secularist is exactly right.

Yes, our faith should be a love affair. But we should not let our emotions get the best of us. True love for the Church, and true faithfulness to its tenants, means criticizing heresy, novelty, and rupture— wherever it is found—and it means calling out whomever it might be that promotes such discontinuity. Faithfulness requires a clear head and the ability to call out nonsense for what it is. To be steeped in history is to cease to be neo-Catholic. It is to see the truth of Tradition, and the farce that is the ritual reference to the hermeneutic of continuity. ■

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Continued

Blatant Discontinuity