How to Treat the Church Fathers (According to the Church Fathers)

Yesterday, we looked at three common ways of misusing the Church Fathers: (1) ignoring or fearing them; (2) exploiting them; (3) treating them as individually infallible. These may seem like simple points, but a large number of Christians (Catholics and Protestants alike) fall into at least one of these three camps. Given this, what does that leave, exactly? How should Christians treat the writings of the Church Fathers? Fortunately, we can find an answer to that question ... in the writings of the Church Fathers themselves.

Don’t worry, it’s not as circular as it sounds. They’re not telling us how to interpret their own writings: they’re telling us how to interpret the writings of the men that they considered Church Fathers. By the time of  men like St. Augustine (354-430), the writings of certain earlier Christians were already being held up as Patristic writings, and the were considered “Church Fathers.” So how did the fourth and fifth century Church Fathers tell their readers to treat the Patristic writings?

Five Lessons from St. Augustine About the Church Fathers

“Pelagius Hereticus and John Chrysostom,”
Woodcut, Nuremberg Chronicles (1493)

In St. Augustine’s fifth-century work Against Julian, he directly confronts a Pelagian by the name of (you guessed it) Julian. Specifically, Julian of Eclanum, who falls into one of the first two camps in his treatment of the Fathers. On the one hand, he freely disregards the consensus of earlier Church Fathers as “a conspiracy of the wicked” (36). These Fathers include, as Augustine notes, “men of such quality and importance, Cyprian, Hilary, Gregory, Ambrose,  and other priests of the Lord” (91). To that extent, he sounds very much like some of the modern Evangelical critics of the Church Fathers.

On the other hand, when it is convenient, Julian appeals to the Church Fathers. Or more accurately, he appeals to one of them,the recently-deceased St. John Chrysostom of Constantinople, to try to prove Pelagianism. Julian does this by proof-texting what John actually said, taking one of his homilies out of context. Augustine laments to John, “in your writings this young man thinks he has found the means to overthrow and make void the opinions of so many of your great fellow bishops.” (28).

Augustine responds by showing that Julian is misappropriating the Church Fathers, and then by using the authority of the Church Fathers to disprove Pelagianism. Here is Augustine's own summary of the argument (380-81):

In Book 1 of this work I gave an abundant and more certain answer from the testimonies of the Catholic treatises of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. John of Constantinople, although you say these are in accord with your opinion. I showed how by failing to understand some of their words you, with remarkable blindness, attack their teaching, which is the Catholic teaching. And in Book 2 I said enough to show it is no 'conspiracy of lost men,' but the pious and faithful consensus of the holy and learned fathers of the Catholic Church which resists your heretical novelties, for the ancient Catholic truth. You say we offer 'the people's muttering alone' against you; but it is not alone, since it rests on the authority of very great teachers, and it is also just, because it does not wish you, who also know this very well, to destroy the salvation of infants, which is in Christ.

Now, what lessons can we learn from all of this?

Lesson 1: The sensus fidelium is infallible. 

Julian makes it clear that he doesn’t think that the dispute over Pelagianism should be settled by popular opinion. Augustine agrees with this, but he distinguishes this from the sensum fidelium, which he describes as protected by divine assistance (100):

But I do not disturb you by the large numbers of the multitude, although by the grace of God, about this faith which you oppose, even the multitude of the Catholics has sound judgment. In this, many, where they can and in whatever way they can, as they are given divine assistance, constantly refute your vain argument.

So there are two lessons here: first, the sensum fidelium is something distinct from popular opinion. For one thing, it only includes Catholics. Second, this sensum fidelium doesn’t just happen to be right. Rather, it is correct through the grace of God and divine assistance.

Lesson 2: The Consent of the Church Fathers is Binding.

Since Julian has made it clear that he rejects any appeal to the sensum fidelium, Augustine opts for another line of argumentation: the Church Fathers themselves (101):

But because it pleases you not to count numbers but to weigh the few, […] I set against you as judges in this case ten bishops (now deceased) and one priest who passed judgment on this matter while they were alive. If we consider your small numbers, they are many; if we consider the multitude of Catholic bishops, they are very few.

Who were the eleven men Augustine cited to?

17th c. Icon of the Three Holy Hierarchs: Basil the Great (left - #7),
John Chrysostom (center, #9) and Gregory of Nazianzus (right, #6),

1. St. Irenaeus of Lyons
2. St. Cyprian of Carthage
3. St. Reticius of Autun
4. St. Olympius of Enos
5. St. Hilary of Poitiers
6. St. Gregory of Nazianzus
7. St. Basil of Caesarea
8. St. Ambrose of Milan
9. St. John Chrysostom
10. Pope St. Innocent I, and 
11. St. Jerome.

Of these, all but Jerome was a Catholic bishop. Augustine has gathered them from both the East and West, and Auguste does not hesitate to use St. John Chrysostom against Julian. These men, Augustine explained, possessed authentic teaching authority within the Church (37):

But see to what I have introduced you: the assembly of these saints is not a popular multitude; they are not only sons but also fathers of the Church. They are of that number of whom it is prophesied: 'In the place of thy fathers sons are born to thee, thou shalt set them as princes over all the earth.' [Psalm 45:16] From her, sons are born to learn these things; they became her fathers that they might teach.

And this passage, although lengthy, is a beautiful explanation of why Augustine chose these eleven men in particular (102-103):

If an episcopal synod were gathered from the whole world, it would be surprising if so many men of such calibre could be members of it. For these did not all live at one time, but God, as it pleases Him and He judges expedient, Himself distributes His stewards, faithful, few, more excellent than many, in diverse ages, times and places. So you see them gathered from various periods and regions, from the East and the West, not at a place to which men are obliged to travel, but in a book which can travel to men. The more desirable these judges would be for you if you held the Catholic faith, which they sucked with their mother's milk, which they took in their food, and they have ministered this milk and food to great and small, openly and bravely defending it against its enemies even you who were not then born; whence you now stand revealed.

With such planters, waterers, shepherds, fosterers, the holy Church grew after the time of the Apostles. This is why she feared the profane voices of your novelty, and, being cautious and sober as a result of the Apostle's warning, lest, as the Serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, her mind be seduced from the chastity which is in Christ; [2 Cor. 11:3] she shuddered at the toils of your doctrine creeping toward the virginity of the Catholic faith like the head of a serpent; she trod upon it, crushed it, cast it away. 

Therefore, by the statements and the great authority of holy men you will either be cured God's mercy granting it, and He who may accomplish it knows how much I desire it for you or, what I deprecate, if you persevere in this your wisdom which is really great folly, you will no longer merely seek judges before whom you may justify your cause, but before whom you may accuse so many famous and brilliant holy teachers of the Catholic truth: Irenaeus, Cyprian, Reticius, Olympius, Hilary, Gregory, Basil, Ambrose, John, Innocent, Jerome, and the others, their comrades and colleagues, and, in addition the whole Church of Christ, to which divine family they faithfully ministered the food of the Lord and thus grew famous in the glory of the Lord.

In other words, it’s not just a matter of picking out some random Christian writers from antiquity. The Church Fathers were more than that. They were “saintly men, many and great, learned in sacred letters, brilliant, highly honored and praised for their remarkable government of the Church” (105). They have withstood the test of time, and they rightfully “grew famous in the glory of the Lord.” To oppose the assembled Fathers is therefore to oppose the Church Herself, a point we will address more directly in a moment.

Contrast this with the example from yesterday, in which Dr. Keith Sherlin attempted to prove that “Orthodox Believers of History Have Believed in a Pretribulational View” by appealing to Fra Dolcino of Novara, a thirteenth century heretic who was burnt at the stake.

Lesson 3: To Reject the Consensus of the Fathers is Self-Destructive

St. Cyprian of Carthage

Julian was aware that the Church Fathers spoke against his Pelagian positions, but he claimed that this just proved that they were heretics (an argument that may sound familiar today). Specifically, Julian dismissed these Fathers as Manicheans. It’s no small irony that this same argument is frequently raised today by Protestants who dismiss these same Fathers as Pelagians. In any event, Augustine answers this line of argument definitively (136):

For, if Manichaeans have ravished the Church through holy bishops of God, and through the memorable doctors Irenaeus, Cyprian, Reticius, Olympius, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory, Basil, John, Innocent, and Jerome, then tell me, Julian, who gave birth to you? Was she a chaste woman or a harlot who through the womb of spiritual grace brought you into the light you have deserted? Is it to defend the Pelagian dogma that you defame the womb of the bride of Christ, who is your mother, by a wicked impulse not of error, but of madness?

The argument works just as well today. If the Church Fathers were heretical, you cannot trust the Bible, since it these same Fathers who tell us which Books belong in the Bible; nor can you trust the Gospel, since it is from these same Fathers who preserved the Church from heresy (or didn't). This is similar to the argument Augustine makes elsewhere, that to reject the Catholic Church is to reject the Bible.

Lesson 4: Individual Church Fathers Can Err On Certain Issues

In response to Julian’s citation of a sermon by St. John Chrysostom to support Pelagianism, Augustine makes two arguments in rapid succession: that the Fathers should be read in a manner harmoniously with one another (particularly on issues at the “foundations of the faith”), and that on there are other issues on which the Fathers may nevertheless disagree (25-26):

Do you, then, dare to set these words of the holy bishop John in opposition to so many statements of his great colleagues, and separate him from their most harmonious society, and constitute him their adversary? Far be it, far be it from us to believe or say such an evil thing of so great a man. Far be it from us, I say, to think that John of Constantinople, on the question of the baptism of infants and their liberation by Christ from the paternal handwriting, should oppose so many great fellow bishops, especially the Roman Innocent, the Carthaginian Cyprian, the Cappadocian Basil, the Nazianzene Gregory, the Gaul Hilary, the Milanese Ambrose. 

There are other matters on which at times even the most learned and excellent defenders of the Catholic rule do not agree, without breaking the bond of the faith, and one speaks better and more truly about one thing and another about another. But this matter about which we are now speaking pertains to the very foundations of the faith.

So individually, the Church Fathers aren’t infallible, and disagree with each other on some of the less-important aspects of the Faith. This directly answers the error of the third camp (which seeks to treat the Fathers as individually infallible, forming some sort of super-Magisterium).  But we find them in harmony on the more important issues, like infant Baptism.  To reject their teachings on these issues is to reject “the very foundations of the faith.” (This should make it obvious why Baptists, who reject the early Christian's unanimous witness on infant Baptism, typically aren't fond of the Church Fathers).

Lesson 5: Listen to the Pope

On of the first arguments Augustine makes is that this whole controversy could have been avoided if Julian had just listened to “blessed Pope Innocent” in the first place. While Augustine ends up citing to a whole litany of Eastern and Western Fathers, his original argument had relied entirely upon Fathers from the West. He argued that this should have been sufficient, since these Fathers were in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Apostolic See (14):

Pope St. Innocent I

Again I admonish you, again I ask, look at the great number of defenders and doctors of the Catholic Church; see on whom you inflict so serious and so wicked an injury. Or do you think that they are to be despised because they all belong to the Western Church and I have not mentioned any Eastern bishops among them? What, then, shall we do, since they are Greek and we Latin? I think that that part of the world should suffice for you in which the Lord wished to crown with glorious martyrdom the first of His Apostles. If you had been willing to listen to the head of that Church, blessed Innocent, you would already have withdrawn your perilous youth from the Pelagian snares. For, what could that holy man answer the African councils except what the Apostolic See and the Roman Church together with the others have steadfastly held from of old?

He then describes Pope Innocent, a latecomer to the Pelagian controversy, as having superior rank even to the other Fathers (15):

Consider what you will reply to St. Innocent, who knows nothing else of this matter except the opinion of those into whose company I introduced you, if that is of any avail. He, too, is on their side; though later in time, yet higher in place.

The Testimony of the Other Fathers

I should emphasize that, while I've chosen to highlight St. Augustine’s writings on this issue, he was by no he wrote:
means alone. Just as Augustine sought to correct Julian’s misuse of St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius (296-373) prevented the Arian heretics from claiming that the Fathers (and specifically, St. Dionysius of Alexandria) were Arians. To one reader,

I approved of the right opinion entertained by your piety concerning our blessed fathers, while on the present occasion I once more recognise the unreasonableness of the Arian madmen. For whereas their heresy has no ground in reason, nor express proof from holy writ, they were always resorting to shameless subterfuges and plausible fallacies. But they have now also ventured to slander the fathers: and this is not inconsistent, but fully of a piece with their perversity.

Saint Basil (329-379), #7 on Augustine's list, explained that he did not “venture to propound the outcome of my own intelligence, lest I make the words of true religion merely human words.” Instead, “what I have been taught by the holy Fathers, that I announce to all who question me.”

Vasily Surikov, Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (1876)

We also see this commitment to the Church Fathers (and the pope) at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Council that defined Christ as being fully Human and fully Divine. At the Council, Bishop Paschasinus described Pope Leo as “the most blessed and apostolic bishop of the Roman city, which is the head of all the churches.” When the Council Fathers were asked to adjudicate an unjust condemnation of St. John of Constantinople, the Acts of the Council report the following responses:

Paschasinus the most reverend bishop, representing the Apostolic See, said; “Flavian of blessed memory hath most holily and perfectly expounded the faith. His faith and exposition agrees with the epistle of the most blessed and apostolic man, the bishop of Rome.”

Anatolius the most reverend archbishop of Constantinople said; “The blessed Flavian hath beautifully and orthodoxly set forth the faith of our fathers.”

Lucentius, the most reverend bishop, and legate of the Apostolic See, said; “Since the faith of Flavian of blessed memory agrees with the Apostolic See and the tradition of the fathers it is just that the sentence by which he was condemned by the heretics should be turned back upon them by this most holy synod.”

Maximus the most reverend bishop of Antioch in Syria, said: “Archbishop Flavian of blessed memory hath set forth the faith orthodoxly and in accordance with the most beloved-of-God and most holy Archbishop Leo. And this we all receive with zeal.”

Thalassius, the most reverend bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia said; “Flavian of blessed memory hath spoken in accordance with Cyril of blessed memory.”

All of these responses emphasize two common themes: agreement with the pope, and agreement with the Church Fathers. I could give other examples, but I think that this suffices to demonstrate what a proper respect for the Church Fathers looks like.

Three Ways You Shouldn't Treat the Church Fathers

Woodcut, The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

What should we Christians make of the Early Church Fathers, the early Christians who preserved orthodox Christianity?

After all, these are the men who compiled the Scriptures, organized the early Ecumenical Councils, and warded off dozens of heresies. How much attention should we pay to their writings, and how much credence should these writings receive?

Before answering that, I want to show three wrong ways of approaching the Church Fathers. The first way is to ignore them; or worse, to disregard them as pagans. The second way is to exploit them: to cite them in glowing terms when they agree with the position that you already hold to, and throw them away when they challenge your pre-existing views. The third wrong way is to treat them as if every word that they speak is infallible.

Having shown why each of these approaches fails, I’ll put forward an alternative view tomorrow. Or more accurately, I’ll show from the writings of the Church Fathers how they believed Patristic writings should be used.

Wrong Way #1: Ignoring or Fearing the the Church Fathers.

This first camp tends to be made up of Baptists and other modern Evangelicals. For members of this camp, the teachings of the Church Fathers don’t matter, either because they disregard the Fathers as heretics, or because they just don’t really care what the Fathers have to say.  Scot McKnight, himself an Evangelical, describes the problem of ignorance well:

Most evangelicals know almost nothing about the early Fathers, and what they do know (they think) supports what they already believe, so why bother studying them. When it comes to realities, however, few have read even a page of the Fathers. However, very few evangelicals are drawn to either the Fathers or the Medieval theologians to strengthen their faith and interpretation. The only theologian from this era most of them bother reading is St. Augustine (whom they hesitantly call "saint" out of courtesy). 

So there might be an assumption that the Church Fathers must have believed in something like modern Evangelicalism, but a hesitation and even a refusal to read the Church Fathers directly, to find out if that theory is true.

Much of this ignorance seems to be intentional. I've previously mentioned the episode of "the Berean Call" with Dave Hunt and Tom McMahon, in which they simultaneously claim that the Church Fathers weren't Catholic, and warn Evangelicals not to read them, and instruct Evangelicals to follow (their own interpretation of) the Bible instead of the writings of the early Christians. 

Worse, when it’s shown that the early Christians were Catholics, not Evangelicals or Baptists, this is treated as a reason to reject the Fathers, rather than a reason to convert to the faith of the early Church. McKnight mentioned that Augustine is the one Father that Evangelicals tend to like. But when they discover he was Catholic, this reaction often changes. So, for example, Laurence M. Vance (a Baptist firmly entrenched in this first camp), has lambasted St. Augustine as a heretic. From pp. 55-56 of The Other Side of Calvinism:

St. Augustine (from an Austrian pulpit) (1890s)

Since Augustine is regarded by Calvinists as “in a true sense the founder of Roman Catholicism,” it is no surprise that he maintained a number of Roman Catholic heresies besides baptismal regeneration. He taught that Mary was sinless and promoted her worship. He allowed for the intercession of saints and the adoration of relics together with the miracles attributed to them. He was the first who defined the so-called sacraments as a visible sign of invisible grace, and adds confirmation, marriage, and ordination to the Lord’s Supper and baptism. To Augustine the only true church was the Catholic Church. Writing against the Donatists, he asserted: 

The Catholic Church alone is the body of Christ, of which He is the head and Saviour of His body. Outside this body the Holy Spirit giveth life to no one, seeing that, as the apostle says himself, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us;” but he is not a partaker of the divine love who is an enemy of unity. Therefore, they have not the Holy Ghost who are outside the Church.

 He believed in an apostolic succession of bishops from Peter as one of the marks of the true church. [… Lorraine] Boettner also admits that Augustine was the one who gave the doctrine of purgatory its first definite form.

Admittedly, many of the claims that Vance makes are false: Augustine didn’t found Roman Catholicism, didn’t teach that Mary or relics should be worshiped, didn’t “add” to the number of Sacraments, didn’t believe that the Eucharist was simply a “spiritual presence,” etc. But ignoring these and a whole host of other factual errors, Vance’s central point is true: Augustine was a Catholic who held to Catholic teachings.

This ought to be a reason to take a second look at Evangelical assumptions about what Christianity teaches about Mary, purgatory, relics, Sacraments, the structure and marks of the true Church, baptismal regeneration, etc. But instead, it is treated as a reason to reject Augustine.

Why this First Way Doesn’t Work: It Reduces Christianity to Incoherence

Guillaume Crétin, Baptism of Sigebert III from the Grandes Chroniques de France (16th c.)

Of all of the early Christians who left a substantial “paper trail,” they all sound more Catholic than they do Protestant. For example, there was no camp that rejected the supposed “heresy” of baptismal regeneration: that was the view that all Christians took in the first millennium of Christianity. 

It’s not just me saying that, either. The Protestant history Philip Schaff, in his History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325, wrote on “The Doctrine of Baptism” that “This ordinance was regarded in the ancient church as the sacrament of the new birth or regeneration,” and that its “effect consists in the forgiveness of sins and the communication of the Holy Spirit.”

So to take this Evangelical position, you end up needing to reject not just Augustine, but the entire Christian Church of the first few centuries. Why is that a problem? Two reasons. First, because it undermines the authority of all of Christianity. Try proving the Trinity when you believe that everyone at the Council of Nicaea was a heretic, along with all of the early Trinitarian apologists.

But wait, you argue: I’ll just argue from the Bible alone! That’s impractical, since you end up debating the same handful of passages, generation after generation, without getting very far. But more fundamentally, where did you get that Bible, exactly? How do you know which Books are orthodox, and of Apostolic authorship? Remember that many of them are internally anonymous, and that there were several false Gospels purporting to be Apostolic.

There are basically two answers to this. The first is to claim some sort of internal witness of the Holy Spirit, in which the Holy Spirit reveals the truth to you, individually, directly. And that’s what much of Protestantism devolves into. But if you’ve got those sort of prophetic powers, why do you even need Scripture? And in any case, why should any one besides you believe in Scripture on the authority of your internal feelings? After all, Mormons claim to have the same thing.

The second answer is the authority of the Church (either the witness and consensus of the Church Fathers, the decrees of the early Church Councils, or both). But if you condemn that Church as heretical, this option is closed off to you, and your religion becomes, frankly, an incoherent mess.

Wrong Way #2: Exploiting the Church Fathers.

Woodcut, The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

This second error (which overlaps with the first) is one that I’ve seen mostly from Lutherans and Calvinists. This unprincipled treatment of the Fathers dates back to Luther and Calvin themselves. For example, in the 1559 edition of Institutes of Christian Religion, the reformer John Calvin cited Augustine over 400 times. And note well, these are positive citations: he is trying to prove the truth of his claims, in part, by citing to Augustine's authority. Calvin is attributed as saying, “Augustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so with all fullness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings.”

But while Luther and Calvin both considered themselves Augustinians, they really only accepted a sliver of what he taught (mostly, cherry-picking certain things he said about predestination), while rejecting (or simply ignoring) his teachings on a slew of other issues, like the papacy, the Sacraments, etc.

As the Vance passage cited above points out, Augustine held views on Mary, purgatory, relics, Sacraments, the structure and marks of the true Church, baptismal regeneration, etc., that modern Lutherans and Calvinists would find anathema.  And on all of these issues, the Patristic position is simply disregarded, even if it is the position held by all of the Fathers, which is how John Piper can justify rejecting baptismal regeneration, by appealing instead to his personal (mis)reading of 1 Peter 3:21.

Why this Second Way Doesn’t Work: It Doesn’t Treat the Fathers Honestly.

To cherry-pick a handful of Calvinist-sounding things from Augustine, while ignoring an overwhelming number of other things that he taught is exploitative. If you only accept Augustine when he agrees with what you already hold, Augustine doesn't matter. You’re believing only on your own authority, and citing to Augustine is little more than a pretense. Plus, as we will see tomorrow, this uses Augustine in a way he would have resented, and a way that he protested against.

Fra Dolcino of Novara (c. 1250 – 1307)

Of course, the same is true for the exploitation of any of the Fathers. For example, Dr. Keith Sherlin, a pro-“rapture” advocate, claims that “Orthodox Believers of History Have Believed in a Pretribulational View” by citing to four early Christians. Here is a sample of Sherlin's analysis:

One scholar has found a quote that relates to the teachings and disciples of Dolcino. Dolcino and his followers held to some form of rapture view whereby people were translated to heaven before the time of judgment on the Antichrist.

This is a great example of cherry-picking. The “orthodox believer” that the author has chosen was Fra Dolcino of Novara, the head of a short-lived heretical sect, known as the Dulcinians, from the fourteenth century. And the passage he cites to is not one of Dolcino's own writings, but a passage from an anonymous book about the Dulcinians, called The History of Brother Dolcino.

Sherlin’s clear that he’s choosing Dolcino simply because either he or his followers seem to have “held to some form of rapture view.” It’s not because Sherlin actually thinks Dolcino was orthodox (I strongly doubt Sherlin has any idea who Dolcino was, or about the Spiritualist Franciscans more generally). All he seems to mean by “orthodox believer” is “someone who seems to agrees with the position I’m currently arguing for.”

Sherlin certainly wouldn’t endorse the actual positions of the Dulcinists. The Dulcinist “rapture” view includes the prediction that “when the Antichrist is dead, Dolcino himself, who then would be the holy pope, and his preserved followers, will descend on the earth, and will preach the right faith of Christ to all, and will convert those who will be living then to the true faith of Jesus Christ.”

So Sherlin can't actually believe that the Dulcinians are orthodox, or that their end-times predictions were true. He’s just reaching for somebody from history he can point to, in order to give the illusion that his views were consistently held (when they weren’t). That’s not honest scholarship, and it’s beneath what we should expect from Christians.

Wrong Way #3: Treating the Church Fathers as Infallible.

There is a third error, however, at the opposite end of the spectrum: treating something as true simply because a particular Church Father says so. I think that this is self-explanatory, so I will add only two things. First, we Catholics are most likely to fall into this trap. Second, this is the least dangerous of the three approaches (and the one closest to what the Fathers prescribe). However, it is still problematic, as we are about to see.

Why this Third Way Doesn’t Work: The Fathers Occasionally Disagree.

The basic problem is that the Fathers occasionally disagree with each other. It doesn’t happen frequently, but it does happen. We have, for example, letters between St. Augustine and St. Jerome in which the two Saints (both of them Doctors of the Church) disagree with one another. Sometimes, the Church will step in and declare which of the two (or more) sides was correct: as She did with the canon of Scripture. 

So there are really two problems: first, it’s logically impossible for contradictory Patristic views to each be infallible; second, you can’t reject a teaching of the Magisterium simply because a Church Father taught otherwise prior to the Church settling an issue.

So where does that leave us? It seems that every way we would go about approaching the Church Fathers is wrong. If only one of the Church Fathers had left us some clue about how to use their writings. Tune in tomorrow to see how Augustine and others answered this problem.

Son Rise Morning Show: 10 Things I Learned in My First Year of Seminary

Ludovico Mazzolino,
The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus Teaching in the Temple (1524)

At 7:50 (Central) tomorrow morning, I'm going to be on Son Rise Morning Show, talking about what I learned in my first year of seminary.


You'll only be able to hear me online (unless you happen to live in Cincinnati). So if you want to listen to it live, go to http://www.sonrisemorningshow.com/, and click the "Listen Live" button at the top of the screen.


For the rest of you, in my experience, it's usually about a day between when they do the local broadcast, and when they re-air it nationally on EWTN Radio.  So feel free to listen in to Son Rise Morning Show over the next few days, especially if you (or someone you know) is discerning seminary.

Ten Things I Learned in My First Year of Seminary

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind: classes ended, I had three papers and four finals, I went to Clear Creek Monastery for a few days, and four of our men were ordained deacons. As I make the transition from being in seminary to spending the summer at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, I wanted to share ten things that I learned this year:

1. The Liturgy of the Hours is the Prayer of the People of God

The Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, is the prayer of the People of God for two reasons. First, because it is prayed for you. Priests make a public promise to pray these prayers daily for the Church. They’re not meant to replace private prayer, but to supplement it. Second, the laity are invited and encouraged to join in these liturgies, as well as to pray the Hours privately. The Catechism (CCC 1175), citing the Second Vatican Council's Sacrosanctum Concilium, has this to say:

Aert de Gelder, Simeon’s Song of Praise (1710)

The Liturgy of the Hours is intended to become the prayer of the whole People of God. In it Christ himself "continues his priestly work through his Church." His members participate according to their own place in the Church and the circumstances of their lives: priests devoted to the pastoral ministry, because they are called to remain diligent in prayer and the service of the word; religious, by the charism of their consecrated lives; all the faithful as much as possible: "Pastors of souls should see to it that the principal hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and on the more solemn feasts. The laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually."

So what is the Divine Office? It is a set of up to seven prayers (called “hours”) punctuating the day, so that we can pray with the Psalmist, “Seven times a day I praise thee for thy righteous ordinances” (Psalm 119:164). Typically, monks and nuns pray all seven, priests pray five, and the laity are encouraged to pray at least two or three (Lauds and Vespers, and hopefully, Office of Readings). Each “hour” consists of a hymn, Psalms (or parts of the Psalms), Scripture reading, and prayer:

• Invitatory: This isn't a separate hour of its own. Rather, as DivineOffice.org explains, “The Invitatory is the introduction to the first hour said on the current day, whether it be the Office of Readings or Morning Prayer.” Traditionally, the invitatory Psalm is Psalm 95. Psalm 100, Psalm 67, or Psalm 24 may also be used, but I have never seen this done.
  
  



Jan de Bray, David Playing the Harp (1670)

• Office of Readings: This is a major hour, and replaces Matins. After the hymn and three Psalms, there are two readings. The first is from Scripture, and the second typically comes from the Church Fathers or a Church Council. The second reading often serves as a commentary on the Scripture reading or the liturgical feast of the day. In all, Office of Readings takes about 15 minutes.
  
  
• Morning Prayer (Lauds): After the hymn and three Psalms, there is a short Scripture reading (usually only a couple verses long: just enough to give you something to reflect on), a short Responsory Prayer, the Canticle of Zechariah (the Benedictus, Luke 1:68-79), intercessions, the Our Father, and a closing prayer. Lauds also takes about 15 minutes.
  
  
• Daytime Prayer (Terce, Sext, None): These are minor hours, prayed at mid-morning, midday, and mid-afternoon. They are three short Psalms, a short reading from Scripture, and a closing prayer. Diocesan priests are only required to pray one of these. Monks and nuns will often pray all three. Traditionally, they are prayed at about 9 a.m., noon, and 3 p.m. (the third, sixth, and ninth hours: hence, the names). Each one takes about 5 minutes to pray.
  
  
• Evening Prayer (Vespers): The structure of Vespers is almost identical to Lauds, except that instead of praying the Canticle of Zechariah, you pray the Canticle of Mary (the Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55). It also takes about 15 minutes.
  
  
• Night Prayer (Compline): After reflecting on your day, you pray an act of contrition, followed by a hymn, one Psalm, a short Scriptural reading, the Canticle of Simeon (the Nunc Dimittis, Luke 2:29-32), and a closing prayer. Typically, this is followed by a Marian hymn.

2. We All Want to Be Good (And Can't Help It)

St. Thomas Aquinas' moral philosophy is built upon what he calls the notion of the good, that “good is that which all things seek after.” We pursue what we view as good: all of us do this, always. 

Think about it: if a thing didn’t seem good in some way, we wouldn’t bother striving for it. To will something is to desire it, and all of our intentional actions are willed. So even when we do something that we know, rationally, is evil, it shows that some part of us is unconvinced: some part of us -- our passions, for example -- views it as a good worth achieving. Evil, by definition, is treating something which isn't good as if it were. This point will turn out to be both the bedrock of Thomas' ethical system, and (as we shall see below) an answer to some of the strongest arguments from modern philosophers. 

But this point is also profoundly humanizing, because Aquinas doesn't demonize evildoers. He reminds us that they, like us, are people who love and seek that which they think (on some level) is good. 

3. One of Aristotle’s Four Causes reveals the meaning of life.

Why does Michelangelo’s David exist? Who or what caused it? According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, our answer to that question should delineate four different types of causes: formal, material, efficient, and final. (Obviously, he didn’t address the David directly).

Materially, the cause is the marble. The formal cause is the shape of the statue: it’s David. Together, the form and matter of the statue are what give it its nature (as a marble statue of David). But the form and matter don’t tell the full story. We have to look to the efficient (or agent) cause: primarily, that’s Michelangelo. In a secondary sense, Michelangelo’s tools can also be described as efficient causes.

Let's not even talk about the Royals right now.

But there’s one more cause: the final cause. The final cause is the end, “that for the sake of which” the thing exists. In other words, the final cause is the goal, the motive of the action. Only if you ask why Michelangelo made the David can you fully understand the statues' causes.

Final causality applies to all human activity. Take the example of a batter swinging at the first pitch of a baseball game. What’s his goal in swinging the bat? To hit the ball. But there’s a more final cause: he’s trying to hit the ball so that he can get on base. And he’s trying to do that so that he can score a run, and so on.

When you start to arrange the causes in these sorts of sequences, they begin to converge. So, for example, a batter not swinging at a pitch is the opposite action as the last example. But when you explore why the two batters swing (or don’t), you can see that they are pursuing the same goal: trying to get on base, score runs, win the game, etc. So these opposite actions are done for the same final ends.

If you were to arrange all human activity into these series of causes, you’d see them eventually converge at a single point: one goal which is desired only for its own sake (since if it’s done for the sake of something else, that something else is a further end). Aristotle describes this as perfect happiness, which he says can be achieved fully only in contemplating the Divine for eternity. For a pre-Christian pagan, that’s an incredible insight.

But this method is something we too rarely practice: we act without considering why we’re acting. Why work overtime, or own a car, or go on vacation? Why do anything at all? We need to have our goal in view, or our actions become (literally) pointless.

4. Thomas Aquinas Solved the “Is / Ought” Problem... Five Hundred Years Early

Philosophers like David Hume (1711-1776) and G. E. Moore (1873-1958) have posed what’s called the “is / ought” problem. In a nutshell, it says that prescriptive statements (what we ought to do or not do) can never be deduced from descriptive statements (describing what is).

David Hume

So, for example, pointing out that the Final Solution was genocide is merely descriptive. According to Hume and Moore, this isn’t enough to prove that the Nazis shouldn’t have pursued it, since that's a prescriptive judgment. The most we can say is that they shouldn’t have done it if some subjective condition was true. For example, they shouldn’t have done it if they wanted history to judge them well, or if they wanted to treat the Jews with respect, etc. But all of these conditions are prescriptions (we ought to want to treat the Jews with respect, etc.).  So it appears that every  moral system requires something to be added to the objective facts.  This addition adds an arbitrary, or at least subjective, element, so we can't describe any moral system as objectively true.

This argument appears strong, and it's a dangerous one. If morality is something added to the objective facts, this would seem to show, in Hume's word, that “the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.” Moore went even further, arguing that this showed that “anything whatsoever can be called good.” In this view, the terms “good” and “evil” come to mean nothing more than “agreeable (or disagreeable) to my subjective preferences.”

But it turns out, Aquinas already solved this problem back in the thirteenth century, some five hundred years before Hume posed it.

Aquinas' answer starts with the notion of the good, which I mentioned above (see # 2, above): that “good is that which all things seek after.” From this, he forms what he calls the first precept of natural law, that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” In other words, to describe something as evil is to simultaneously prescribe that it is not to be done. If something is evil, we ought not do it. Why? Because all of us seek the good, and to will something is to treat the object as good  (again, see # 2). So we're not adding a subjective condition, since this “condition” always applies to everyone, absolutely.

Fra Bartolomeo, St. Thomas Aquinas (16th c.)

But Aquinas provides a second way of answering the objection, by showing that our final end (see # 3) is God. We are made by and for God. With that end in view, we can evaluate whether something is good or evil. If we know where we're supposed to be going, we can tell how well we're getting there. If we know how someone or something ought to behave, we can say whether they’re doing it well or poorly. We can speak objectively of someone who bowls a 300 as a good bowler, and someone who bowls a 0 as a bad bowler. A clock that tells time is objectively a better clock than one that doesn’t tell time (even if we happen to like the way the broken clock looks).

G. E. M. Anscombe's husband, Peter Geach, made a similar point in a 1956 essay called Good and Evil, in which he definitely answered the is / ought problem (using similar reasons to what we find in Aquinas' writings). In the essay, he showed how philosophers like Moore were conflating attributive and predicative adjectives (the argument is actually much more interesting than it sounds). At one point, answering the argument that good merely meant “agreeable to my subjective preferences,” he writes:

I totally reject this view that good has not a primarily descriptive force. Somebody who did not care two pins about cricket, but fully understood how the game worked (not an impossible supposition), could supply a purely descriptive sense for the phrase good batting wicket regardless of the tastes of the cricket fans. Again if I call a man a good burglar or a good cut-throat I am certainly not commending him myself; one can imagine circumstances in which these descriptions would serve to guide another man's choice (e.g. if a commando leader were choosing burglars and cut-throats for a special job), but such circumstances are rare and cannot give the primary sense of the descriptions. It ought to be clear that calling a thing a good A does not influence choice unless the one who is choosing happens to want an A; and this influence on action is not the logically primary force of the word good.

So if we know how cricket is supposed to be done, we can say whether someone is good at it. Likewise, if we know how human life is supposed to be lived (that is, how God designed it to be lived), we can say whether someone's actions are good or not-good (evil), and even whether the person's life is good or evil.

5. The Pre-Christian Pagans Got Much Further than Post-Christian Pagans Can Ever Hope To

Reading through the Greek writings written a few centuries prior to Christ, it’s amazing how much these thinkers got right. They start off asking the right questions, but generally giving the wrong answers.

Johannes Moreelse, Heraclitus (1630)

They ask where everything comes from, and what being is, but end up coming to conclusions like “everything is fire.” Even that conclusion isn’t as strange as it sounds. Rather, it’s Heraclitus’ attempt to explain why change perpetually exists within the closed system of the universe. His reasoning was that it is the nature of fire to be in a perpetual state of flux, so perhaps the rest of the universe is simply fire in different phase changes. Smart reasoning, very wrong conclusion.

From their midst, a few philosophers emerge – namely, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – who start giving the right (or nearly-right) answer to one question after another. When the Gospel reaches the Greeks, it finds people who are both intellectually curious, and already convinced of many of the truths of Christianity. It’s little wonder that early Christians like Justin Martyr (100-165) should conclude that the Greek philosophers played the same role for the Gentiles that the prophets played for the Jews: to prepare them for the Gospel. Justin went so far as to say:

We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious.

Of course, all of this is a stark contrast to where post-Christian pagans have gotten. They started by giving the wrong answers to the right questions, and frequently fail to even ask the right questions: to the point of denying the existence of objective truth. The lights of intellectual curiosity appear to be dimming.

This isn’t to say that relativists didn’t exist among the Greeks: they did. Sophists like Patagoras argued that truth was relative, and the Sophistic school treated reason as subservient to rhetorical manipulation. But the Sophists was answered by Socrates and Aristotle, to such an extent that “Sophistic” comes down to us as an insult.

So what gives? The answer seems to be this: Plato and Socrates were one way that God prepared the Gentiles for the Gospel. But the post-Christian pagans have received the full light of the Gospel, and rejected it. There’s nowhere to go from there but down.

6. Changes in Philosophy Impacted Art (and Everything Else)

Raphael, School of Athens (detail) (1509)

One of the major changes between Aristotle and Plato was this: Plato viewed the realest thing as the ideal. That is, he believed in what’s called the Theory of Forms, which goes something like this: various things may possess the same trait (like two numbers possessing “even-ness”). This points to the existence of a transcendent Ideal, or Form (in this case, the Form of Even-ness). Plato, who regarded the material world with great suspicion, viewed this transcendent Ideal as more real than the individual manifestations of it. So the Ideal of Green was truer than all of those things that we call “green.”

Aristotle rejected all of this, holding that the individual substance was the realest thing: a green leaf is more real than the abstract notion of green. The Renaissance painter Raphael captured this well in his massive painting School of Athens, depicting all of the great Greek philosophers of antiquity. At the center of the painting (see the image on the right) are Plato and Aristotle. Plato is pointing upward to his ideal forms: Aristotle counters by pointing forward to the things of the created world.

Why does all of this matter, from a Christian perspective? One reason is art. When Christians were heavily influenced by Platonism, they tended towards iconography, as an attempt to capture the Ideal of Christ. Instead of depicting a single scene from the life of Christ, the Icon would attempt to capture something broader. So, for example, the Christ Pantocrater icon depicts Christ as simultaneously a Merciful and Just Judge (and simultaneously God and Man) by giving Him different expressions on different sides of His Face.

As Western Christian philosophy became increasing Aristotelian, the artistic emphasis shifted as well. Instead of seeking to capture the Ideal or Form of Christ, art focused more on capturing specific events from the Life (or Death) of Christ. Benedict XVI explained all of this in Spirit of the Liturgy:

Platonism sees sensible things as shadows of the eternal archetypes. In the sensible we can and should know the archetypes and rise up through the former to the latter. 

Aristotelianism rejects the doctrine of Ideas. The thing, composed of matter and form, exists in its own right. Through abstraction I discern the species to which it belongs. In place of seeing, by which the super-sensible becomes visible in the sensible, comes abstraction. The relationship of the spiritual and the material has changed and with it man's attitude to reality as it appears to him. 

For Plato, the category of the beautiful had been definitive. The beautiful and the good, ultimately the beautiful and God, coincide. Through the appearance of the beautiful we are wounded in our innermost being, and that wound grips us and takes us beyond ourselves; it stirs longing into flight and moves us toward the truly Beautiful, to the Good in itself. 

Something of this Platonic foundation lives on in the theology of icons, even though the Platonic ideas of the beautiful and of vision have been transformed by the light of Tabor. Moreover, Plato's conception has been profoundly reshaped by the interconnection of creation, Christology, and eschatology, and the material order as such has been given a new dignity and a new value. This kind of Platonism, transformed as it is by the Incarnation, largely disappears from the West after the thirteenth century, so that now the art of painting strives first and foremost to depict events that have taken place.

Thus, it should be no surprise that the shift from iconography to other forms of Christian art runs parallel (both geographically and temporally) to the shift from Platonism to Aristotelianism.

7. Philosophy Means “Love of Wisdom”

“Sophia” is the Greek word for “wisdom,” which is why the early Christians named a church “Hagia Sophia,” or “Holy Wisdom.” “Philo-” is a prefix meaning “love of,” from the same root as words like “Philadelphia” (city of brotherly love). So true philosophy involves loving wisdom: how could it not point you towards God?

8. Science, Philosophy, and Theology Used to be United

As Msgr. Ronald Knox has explained, in the Medieval period, “science, philosophy, and theology are not three disparate branches of learning, but three rungs in a single educational ladder. From the contemplation of nature you rise to pure thought; from pure thought, grace elevates you to the contemplation of the supernatural.”

Nuremberg Chronicle, Thales (1493)

And this view was by no means limited to the Medieval period. The pre-Christian Greeks viewed philosophy similarly: thinkers like Thales treated “philosophy” as including everything from astronomy to mathematics, and Thales used his love of wisdom to do everything from predict eclipses to aiding the Greek army in rerouting a river (by creating a channel to enable the army to pass). And even after the Medievals, we see examples of thinkers firmly committed to doing serious science, serious philosophy, and serious theology, without feeling a need to choose one against the other two.

But between science, philosophy, and theology, there has certainly been a divorce, an often acrimonious one. Unsurprisingly, there is plenty of blame to go around. In his essay on the subject, Knox credibly blames Descartes, for taking philosophy in a radically-critical direction at odds with science or theology; Luther, for viewing man as so totally depraved that science and natural philosophy became irrelevant to theology; and the Deists, for trying to create a philosophical religion that didn't need theology. Others, like Darwin, could easily be added to the list. 

The end result, as Knox notes, is that “men of science, as we know, are still fond of playing about with philosophy; but always they are at issue with the philosophers.” And he’s saying all of this decades before books like Hawking and Mlodinow's Grand Design, or the general New Atheist push to argue metaphysics without bothering to study it.

9. We Can Go Much Deeper in Prayer

The Catechism refers to three broad types of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative. But God wills for us to go deeper and deeper in contemplation of Him, but it’s not always clear how to do this. There are several great guides for this, but one in particular that I would recommend is Thomas Dubay’s Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel - On Prayer, which explores Carmelite spirituality in an easily-understood way. I would recommend it for almost anyone looking to get more serious about prayer.

10. I am Worse Than I Knew, But Everything is Grace

Perhaps nothing exposes one’s lingering faults quite like seminary. It is a group of Christian men who are serious about sanctity, and have cultivated an attention to detail. Furthermore, we are encouraged to engage in “fraternal correction,” on the theory that iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), and we have a moral duty to look out for one another. But fortunately, God is there through all of this. Where I succeed, it is due to His grace. Where I fail, He stands ready to pick me up again. No matter how big my failings, faults, and sins, God’s Mercy is always bigger. As St. Thérèse of Lisieux is said to have said, “everything is grace.” 

It’s been quite a journey this year, but one that I’ve been humbled and thrilled to take.

1 of the 497

The courses are complete. The vestments are ready. The chalice sits waiting for its sacred duty. Six years in the seminary have finally led to this: ordination to the Sacred Priesthood. Since Joe has been fraternally nudging me to post more, I thought I might take a moment and give a glimpse into what it is like for a man on the verge of being ordained a priest.

Nervous

With the end of every school year comes ordination season, and here I am, one of the 497 to be ordained priests in the U.S. this year, waiting for the tsunami of graces and emotions that is scheduled to arrive this Saturday. How did this come to be? Growing up I never imagined that I would be a priest (I was certain I was going to be an astronaut), and surely it was just yesterday that I had made that difficult phone call to the vocation's director to tell him that I was interested in applying for the seminary. Now, with six more years of education under my belt, the Church thinks I am ready to be one of Her priests.

I am naturally a bit nervous about the whole thing. Sure, I have studied the priesthood and even practiced the things a priest does, but I have never actually practiced being a priest per se. I have practice Mass and confession, but I have never actually celebrated them. A few weeks ago I realized the underlying nervousness I had towards the upcoming ordination when I had a startling dream. In my dream I had laid down for a quick nap after my priesthood ordination but then awoke to the frightening realization that I had overslept and missed my first Mass! I was terrified. How could I possibly miss my first Mass? It is a humorous dream in retrospect but my racing heart did not find it funny at the time.

Despite the moments of nervousness, there is a certain level of peace that pervades these last days of preparation. On my canonical retreat I found great consolation in the last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew where He says, "Behold, I am with you always" (Mt 28:20). Why should I be nervous when I know with certainty that Jesus Christ will always be with me?

Humbled

In preparing for the big day, I have spent a lot of time in prayer with the Rite of Ordination of Priests. More often than not, I struggle getting past the beginning of the rite where the Bishop asks a designated priest, "Do you know them to be worthy?" Me, worthy of this great sacrament? Surely not. I am a sinner and weak man like all the others, just ask my brother seminarians. Yet, the Church in Her great wisdom does not ask the ordinands (or their brother seminarians for that matter) if they think they are worthy. Instead, speaking through the bishop and the designated priest, the Church testifies that She has found the men worthy to be a priests. How could I be anything but humbled knowing that the Church has found me of all people worthy for the priesthood?

A little while ago I read St. John Chrysostom's classic work On the Priesthood and in it the Golden Tongue repeatedly expresses his astute awareness of the dignity of the priesthood and the frailty of his human nature before the sublime office. At one point he says, "I know my own soul, how feeble and puny it is: I know the magnitude of this ministry, and the great difficulty of the work; for more stormy billows vex the soul of the priest than the gales which disturb the sea" (III.8). The media constantly reminds us that receiving the sacrament of Holy Orders does not prevent a man from committing sin. Yet, despite his own frailty, the priest is given the great privilege of being God's instrument of mercy and grace in people's lives and access to their greatest joys and deepest sorrows. As I approach the altar of God and prepare to receive this gift myself, humility has been a faithful companion.

Excited

Imagine how excited a couple would be to receive the sacrament of Matrimony if marriage preparation lasted for six years instead of six months! That is kind of how I feel. After spending six years talking about the priesthood and studying it, I feel as if the seminary has done its job and I am more than excited to finally leave the seminary and be a priest. I am excited to have my family and friends together that weekend, and I am excited to finally feed Christ's sheep, to be a "co-worker" of the Bishop's in the vineyard, and to have the privilege of ministering the "Sacrament of sacraments" (CCC 1211).

There was a certain joy and excitement in practicing Mass this past year with the understanding that I was not doing it for fun, but that I was doing is so that I might be able to celebrate it in the near future. The experience of practicing Mass reminded me of learning how to fly a plane. You can take thousands of flights. You can watch a pilot fly the plane. You can even notice when a pilot makes a mistake. But that in no way means you are capable of flying a plane. Despite the countless number of times I have gone to Mass, the first few times practicing the celebration of Mass were not pretty. You do not realize the sheer number of times a priest "extends his hands" until it is actually you who are supposed to be the one with your hands extended!

As I enter these last few days, I am reminded of one last quote from St. John Chrysostom which highlights another reason why it is such an honor to be a priest and why I am excited, humbled, and nervous to be one:

"For they who inhabit the earth and make their abode there are entrusted with the administration of things which are in Heaven, and have received an authority which God has not given to angels or archangels" (III.5). 

Please pray for me and all 497 of us to be ordained priests this year!

Coming Soon: Our Nuclear Engineer Priest

Archbishop Naumann is preparing to ordain four of my brother seminarians to the priesthood at 10:30 a.m. on May 25 at St. Matthew Parish in Topeka. One of them, Deacon Nathan Haverland, was highlighted recently in The Leaven (and The Deacon's Bench) for his unique life story: growing up without religion, he discovered God while studying astrophysics, and entered seminary after getting his master's in nuclear engineering. From the Leaven article:

Deacon (almost Fr.) Nathan Haverland

“I never thought about being a priest while I was growing up,” he said. “I didn’t know what a priest was.”
Both his mother and stepfather had been raised Catholic, but fell away from the faith early, so Deacon Haverland and his older sister didn’t have any religious upbringing. Sunday was just another day of the weekend.
Ah, but God cannot be denied.
French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”
Deacon Haverland was not immune to the pull of that vacuum.
“Everybody has that natural desire to know God, so I think I had that as well,” he said. “I remember asking and thinking questions about stuff like that, but I never had a means to learn.”
His path took a fateful turn when he decided to enroll in a small Catholic college in Atchison — Benedictine.
“They had a nice little physics and astronomy department, which is what I wanted to study,” said Deacon Haverland. “There are only two places in Kansas where you can study physics and astronomy. One was the University of Kansas, and the other was Benedictine.”

[...]

Thanks to great teachers, he said, he began to learn about the Scriptures and Christ. It all made sense. Gradually, his knowledge began to change him. He underwent a slow conversion of mind and heart.
“It was more of a gradual process, more than anything,” he said. “It wasn’t until after my sophomore year that I was having a conversation with someone, and I had to admit I wasn’t Catholic, and I was just kind of sad about it. That was the beginning of me starting to join the church.”

[...]

“I never imagined [growing up] that I’d become a priest. It baffles me as well,” he said. “It is an unusual path to take. I’ve just kind of enjoyed the ride.

Read the whole thing. It’s a great story, and a great reminder of the importance of good Catholic formation. The article mentions his devotion to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, but I wanted to add a story to that: on October 1 of last year, the feast day of St. Thérèse, he defended his thesis on St. Thérèse and the priesthood, while carrying a first-class relic of St. Thérèse in his pocket. That’s devotion.

By the way, Dcn. Haverland has posted here before, although he appears to have decided that preparing for the priesthood is more important than blogging. Congrats to Deacon Haverland, along with the other three men set to be ordained: Deacon Daniel Schmitz, Deacon Quentin Schmitz, and Deacon Larry Bowers. Please join me in offering up some prayers for them as they are configured to Christ in a radical way.

Speaking Out Against the Slave Labor of the Sweatshop System

The Rana Plaza building near Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed recently, killing (at latest count) 657 sweatshop workers, and seriously injuring thousands. Pope Francis responded in a homily, condemning the horrible wages and conditions:

Not paying a just [wage], not providing work, focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at making personal profit. That goes against God! [....] A headline that impressed me so much the day of the Bangladesh tragedy, 'Living on 38 euros a month': this was the payment of these people who have died ... And this is called 'slave labor!'

The collapsed Rana Plaza building

Worse than the hours or conditions is the mindset that gave rise to these sweatshop conditions, a mentality that places profits above human lives. That dehumanizing disregard for the value of human life was particularly visible in this disaster, as management ordered workers to risk their lives, even after it became clear that the building was a serious safety hazard:

Several garment workers near the wreckage said a crack appeared Tuesday on the building's seventh floor. 

At first, the workers said, managers ordered workers not to report to work on Wednesday.

Later, the factory owners reversed the order, telling workers that the building was safe, said Marjina Begum, who worked on the sixth floor. Many workers were hesitant to show up Wednesday but reported to work because they were afraid of losing their jobs, she said. More than a dozen other workers corroborated her story.

It’s this dehumanization that Pope Francis drew particular attention to, noting that in the modern economic system,

People are less important than the things that give profit to those who have political, social, economic power. What point have we come to? To the point that we are not aware of this dignity of the person; this dignity of labor. But today the figure of St. Joseph, of Jesus, of God who work - this is our model - they teach us the way forward, towards dignity. 

Both communism and many forms of capitalism share a reductionist view of man. Instead of treating every human as made in the image and likeness of God, man is viewed simply as “labor” or the “proletariat.” His worth is no longer tied to his innate and God-given human dignity, but to his economic capacity, and he becomes little more than a glorified machine (and in some cases, lower than even machines, since damaged “labor” is easily replaced).

Victims of the Rana Plaza collapse

This point, made well in Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture, has been aggravated by another trend. Over the last few decades, there has been in a shift in how we (particularly, but not exclusively, Americans) view economic issues. In the past, the two sides of the political spectrum were focused largely on the rights and interests of business owners and “job creators” on one side, and the rights and interests of workers on the other.

These days, I’d argue that there’s been a clear shift: both sides of the political aisle are moving away from workers’ rights, and the legitimate rights of businesses (and business owners), in favor of “consumers’ rights.” We see this shift in a variety of contexts. For example, many of the arguments against conscience clauses and for the HHS Mandate both appear to be based on some variation of this idea: “I’m the customer and I want this, so I should be able to have it, even if you are morally opposed to giving it to me.”

That same unprincipled selfishness seems to be at the root of the problem here, as Western (American and British) clothing companies fueled the demand for this sweatshop:

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for major brands including North American retailers The Children's Place and Dress Barn, Britain's Primark, Spain's Mango and Italy's Benetton. Ether Tex said Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, was one of its customers.  

Wal-Mart said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized production.

The companies who treat workers in this dehumanizing manner are morally culpable here, but so are we, when we incentivize this behavior by demanding cheap goods over just wages and conditions.