An essential aspect of freedom is the right to think and believe as we ought, which is to say, according to the legitimate breadth and ambit of our Roman Catholic faith, genuinely, properly, and correctly understood.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
***
The concern I have is that as lay faithful we should not be dragged by clergy or religious, whether individuals or institutions, into their intramural wars inside the Church. Their struggles are often partisan, highly personal, ideologically motivated, unduly dogmatic, aggressive, domineering, tendentious, idiosyncratic, and sometimes even delusional. Opus Dei, in my sad, personal experience, drops into this category.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2023/05/opus-dei-is-cult.html
Although doctrine exists at different levels of authority and certainty, Opus Dei fails to acknowledge these defining nuances. Depending on the specific point of doctrine, different degrees of adherence is required. However, in this matter Opus Dei does not allow the members to exercise their proper freedom as Roman Catholic faithful.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/12/work-of-god-or-work-of-man.html
What is problematic about this regime of censorship in Opus Dei is that it unjustifiably assumes that religious and spiritual authority is infallible in adjudicating truth. Yet we know that religious and spiritual authority in the Roman Catholic Church is infallible, or at least claims to be so, according to a very limited domain—far, far smaller, certainly, than the all-encompassing scope of Opus Dei’s Index of Forbidden Books. Opus Dei’s system of intellectual control, therefore, amounts to, simply, brainwashing.
In Opus Dei, truth is sacrificed on the altar of asceticism, through the “mortification of the intellect.”
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/11/placeholder.html
Public domain photo
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
THE DOGMATIC BOX
ReplyDeletePope Francis has suggested that his conservative critics in the United States have a “suicidal attitude,” in an interview with CBS News.
Asked about criticism from “conservative bishops” in the US who have opposed Francis’ more progressive papacy and efforts to reform the Catholic Church, the Pope paused on the word “conservative,” saying a conservative is “one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude.”
There is an important difference between taking “tradition into account” and being “closed up inside a dogmatic box,” Francis emphasized.
…Some of the strongest pushback to Francis’ progressive approach has come from groups in the United States. Those who oppose Francis say they want a pope instead who lays down the law and presents doctrine in black-and-white terms.
The pope has not been afraid to call out his critics, describing some of his opponents in the US as “backwardists,” saying they have replaced faith with ideology.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/us/pope-conservative-critics-suicidal-attitude-hnk-intl/index.html
—Christopher Lamb, “Pope Francis says his conservative critics in the church have a ‘suicidal attitude,’” CNN.com, May 16, 2024
Gonzalinho
“BACKWARDNESS”—A SICKNESS
ReplyDeletePope Francis said he implemented one of the changes of Traditionis custodes, the 2021 motu proprio restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, because the allowances granted by his predecessors were “being used in an ideological way.”
The pope spoke about the Latin Mass in a private conversation with Jesuits on the second day of his April 28–30 trip to Budapest, Hungary. The text of the April 29 meeting with Jesuits was published by the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica on May 9.
During the question and answer session, Pope Francis said he was concerned about a “reaction against the modern,” or what he calls in Italian “indietrismo,” which translates in English to “backwardness.”
“It is a nostalgic disease,” he said, explaining that this is the reason why he made it necessary for priests ordained after July 16, 2021, to seek authorization from their bishop and the Holy See to offer Mass according to the 1962, pre-Vatican II liturgical books, what is commonly referred to as the Latin Mass.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254268/pope-francis-says-traditional-latin-mass-was-being-used-in-an-ideological-way
—Hannah Brockhaus, “Pope Francis says traditional Latin Mass was being used in an ideological way,” Catholic News Agency, May 9, 2023
“Backwardness” is a sickness.
Gonzalinho
INTELLECTUAL RIGORISM
ReplyDeleteOpus Dei would…engage in “brainwashing”—invoking the obligation of obedience and attractively exhorting the pursuit of holiness, Opus Dei directors would subject the members to physical stress, especially sleep deprivation, and to incessant—in some cases, daily—indoctrination and to censorship, both of which imposed undue restrictions on their intellectual freedom within the Roman Catholic Church, in the process denying members their right to information and in particular their right to informed consent.
This regime of brainwashing equates to a type of intellectual rigorism.
At first members would submit in goodwill to the ascetical regime, which would be gradually restricted over time, increasing in intensity and severity. It would be concomitantly joined to cognitive and behavioral programming in extremist belief and practice.
Gradualism in the imposition of a controlling regime accounts for the difficulty many members underwent extricating themselves from the cult.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/07/placeholder-4-of-4.html
Freedom of conscience—the freedom to act rightly, which is to do moral good and avoid moral evil—cannot be exercised without freedom of the mind. Freedom of the mind is necessary to inform the conscience so that one can make informed moral judgements.
Gonzalinho
Those who expect the soul to love without knowledge of the truth are dictators of the soul. They include real-life dictators and members of religious cults. The similarity between the rulers of authoritarian regimes and Mormons is not coincidental. They use the same playbook.
DeleteSlaves of the dictatorial state serve the god of the state, which in reality is the dictator, whether an individual or a junta or some equivalent. In a dictatorship or democracy, the state apparatus, ideology, or both, when it is elevated as the overriding reason for existence, is a false idol.
Slaves of the religious cult serve the god of the cult leader, which is a false god.
Gonzalinho
Jesus does not tell us we should not understand. He says we should believe. We should believe with understanding, for faith and reason are not contradictory or incompatible.
DeleteGonzalinho
THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING
DeleteNumerous times Jesus emphasizes to the Apostles the importance of understanding God’s Word. He responds to their questions and explains his religious teachings.
“Are even you still without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” (Matthew 15:16-20)
Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables?
“The sower sows the word. These are the ones on the path where the word is sown. As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once and takes away the word sown in them.
“And these are the ones sown on rocky ground who, when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy. But they have no root; they last only for a time. Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.
“Those sown among thorns are another sort. They are the people who hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit.
“But those sown on rich soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:13-20)
Understanding God’s Word is made possible with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
He opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:45-48)
Even when the Apostles do not understand at first, he guarantees their understanding later on.
He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” (John 13:5-7)
Understanding religious doctrine is important and even necessary—many examples are found in the life of Jesus, and in the witness of the Apostles and his disciples.
Gonzalinho
https://youtu.be/VO8dxJtJckk?si=H-Mfyho9lSi-X1E1
Delete—Daily Inspiration, “Fr. Carlos Martins: ‘It’s not our job to understand. It’s our job to obey!’” YouTube video, 10:40 minutes, September 8, 2024
See 2:15: “It’s not our job to understand. It’s our job to obey!”
What Father Carlos Martin asserts goes against the overall tenor of Jesus’ teachings.
Gonzalinho
THE IMPOSED CONSCIENCE
ReplyDeleteVatican II says that “we are bound to follow our conscience faithfully in all our activity and no one is `to be forced to act in a manner contrary to one’s conscience.’” Conscience is “the most secret core and sanctuary of a person...alone with God whose voice echoes in the depths of the person.” (McBrien, “Catholicism”)
It’s not only the voice that whispers what’s right, what’s wrong; it also includes the entire process of thinking what’s right or not, of deciding to do this and not that, of even choosing who’s arguing right or wrong. No longer can any institution’s prescribed conscience “substitute itself for the individual conscience.”
…Opus Dei loves to chant, “You are free!” but the organization does not operate in a manner that enables you to exercise your God-given freedom properly or fully, e.g. it asks you to commit yourself to the organization without adequately attending to the right to informed consent, violating a fundamental human right.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-imposed-conscience.html
I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, giving to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their deeds.—Jeremiah 17:10
Freedom of conscience—the freedom to act rightly, which is to do moral good and avoid moral evil—cannot be exercised without freedom of the mind. Freedom of the mind is necessary to inform the conscience so that one can make informed moral judgements.
Gonzalinho
THE FALSE TRICHOTOMY
ReplyDeleteTruth is its own end and pursued for its own sake. Truth, according to Thomism, is the same as love and beauty—they are transcendental aspects of being that coincide in the same being. To separate truth from love and beauty is, according to this philosophy and theology, a “false trichotomy.”
Gonzalinho
FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE
ReplyDeleteOn April 11, 1963, Holy Thursday, Pope John XXIII symbolically signed the Pacem In Terris, his eighth and final encyclical. He had been diagnosed with cancer sometime before and died shortly after, and that encyclical remained as one of John XXIII's spiritual testaments. Sixty years later, Pacem In Terris is still deeply relevant, even though the world has changed all this time profoundly.
...Each chapter of the encyclical [Pacem in Terris] begins with a declaration concerning men’s aspirations for peace, dignity, and freedom. Pacem In Terris defines human rights and links them to corresponding duties, but everything is read in the light of the divine revelation. As John XXIII explained, “If one considers the dignity of the human person in the light of divine revelation, then it will appear incomparably greater since the blood of Jesus Christ has redeemed men.”
The encyclical is the first formal recognition of human rights, but it does so through a Christian perspective.
...Among these rights is the right to “freedom in the search for truth, in the manifestation of a thought and its dissemination,” the right to honor God according to the dictate of right conscience, and the right to the private and public worship of God. It is the issue of religious freedom, indissolubly linked to freedom of conscience (and the problem of conscientious objection is fundamental).
https://www.ewtnvatican.com/articles/pacem-in-terris-the-utopia-of-john-xxiii-that-became-a-prophecy-celebrates-its-60th-anniversary-812
—Andrea Gagliarducci, “Pacem in Terris, the utopia of John XXIII that became a prophecy, celebrates its 60th anniversary,” EWTN Vatican, April 11, 2023
Freedom in the search for truth is indissolubly connected to freedom of conscience and religious freedom.
Gonzalinho
THOUGHT CONTROL: A DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF CULTS
ReplyDelete6 Sociological Characteristics of Cults
[2] Exclusivism
Cults often believe that they alone have the truth. The cult views itself as the single means of salvation on earth; to leave the group is to endanger one’s soul....
…[4] Opposition to Independent Thinking
Some cultic groups discourage members from thinking independently. The “thinking,” as it were, has already been done for them by the cult leadership; the proper response is merely to submit....
Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups – Revised
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. …
- The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry, or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Cult Mind Control
…As employed by the most destructive cults, mind control seeks nothing less than to disrupt an individual’s authentic identity and reconstruct it in the image of the cult leader. I developed the BITE model to help people determine whether or not a group is practicing destructive mind control. The BITE model helps people understand how cults suppress individual member's uniqueness and creativity. BITE stands for the cult’s control of an individual’s Behavior, Intellect, Thoughts, and Emotions.
…The BITE Model
I. Behavior Control
II. Information Control
III. Thought Control
IV. Emotional Control
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/10/placeholder.html
Gonzalinho
Truth, the condition for freedom
ReplyDeleteMan’s moral conscience is under an obligation to be open to the fullness of truth; he must seek it out and readily accept it when it presents itself to him. According to the command of Christ the Lord, (Cf. Mt 28, 18-20; Mk 16, 15) the truth of the Gospel must be presented to all people, and they have a right to have it presented to them. Its proclamation, in the power of the Spirit, includes full respect for the freedom of each individual and the exclusion of every form of constraint or pressure. (Cf. Dignitatis Humanae, 10)
—Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, March 22, 1986
The truth liberates. It is a necessary condition for freedom.
Gonzalinho
The Christian faithful should be free to seek, find, and embrace the truth as it presents itself to them. It should not be incorrectly or falsely imposed upon them by another.
DeleteGonzalinho