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Henrik Hagnell wrote: |
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Hi, guys —
I would like to know what the Church actually says about this:
Pope Leo XIV, in his Midnight Mass homily, made a false dichotomy of looking up and looking down. He was probably really desperate, so he chose a way of speaking that contradicts what the Church actually teaches, as the Church isn't black and white, like his homily.
The Church sometimes gives us teachings from the Magisterium that aren't even nuanced and are actually too “black” and “white”. In what I can see, there is no good purpose behind trying to make Church teachings “black” and “white” by articulating them in a way that is actually false. The Church seems to think She must use false dichotomies She doesn't even believe in, just to reach people's hearts.
In the Introduction to the Devout Life, we can see this same false dichotomy when St. Francis says that a blind person, being in the presence of a king, can easily forget that the king is present. This goes against how the Church views blind people and how the senses actually work. It is not okay to say something that isn't true just to make a point.
This is why both St. Francis and Pope Leo XIV are so hard to read or listen to. They sound like people who take nuanced truth and make it “black” and “white” or say things the Church doesn't even say.
My brain needs clear, nuanced truth to get help, but it seems the Pope just wants binary, “black and white” thinking.
Pope Benedict XVI was easier for me.
Nowadays, I don't understand why the Church speaks like this.
Henrik
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| { Why does the Church speak like this if the Church values being nuanced and . . . ? } |
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Eric replied:
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Hi Henrik,
I'm afraid I'm not understanding your point about (up-down/black-white) and there was no question in your submission.
- Can you be more specific about how, what Pope Leo said is problematic, perhaps providing a concrete example?
From what I understand he was discussing the Incarnation and how God came down from the Heavens and became an infant on Earth. This is entirely consistent with the Catholic faith.
Eric Ewanco
It is good that you exist. You are worth more in the eyes of God than the entire cosmos..
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Henrik replied:
- What is it that is hard to understand?
Henrik
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Eric replied:
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- Before I explain that, do you have a specific question we can help with?
Eric Ewanco
It is good that you exist. You are worth more in the eyes of God than the entire cosmos..
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Henrik replied:
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The pope said,
"For millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky, giving names to the silent stars, and seeing images therein."
and
"Yet, as if grasping in the dark, they remained lost, confounded by their own oracles.”
Here he seems to say that gazing up is bad but I say that the Magi’s did in fact do that and God helped me. The pope seems to miss that fact.
He also said,
"In their imaginative yearning, they tried to read the future in the heavens, seeking on high for a truth that was absent below amidst their homes.”
Here again he forgets that the Magi’s left their homes to find Jesus in the cave. They gazed up n followed a star. Thus, gazing up can be good.
What he says sounds actually like he has a point but forgets that truth is more nuanced and that the Magi’s gazed both “up” and “down”.
In the Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales says,
"A blind man when in the presence of his prince will preserve a reverential demeanor if told that the king is there, although unable to see him; but practically, what men do not see they easily forget, and so readily lapse into carelessness and irreverence. "
Here he seems to say that blind men easily forget that a person is present or doesn't know that someone is present due to being blind.
But if so, that goes against Catholic philosophical anthropology which says that we use different senses to know that someone is or is not sent and that blind men do just easily forget (unless, I guess, they have dementia.)
St Francis de Sales seems to take a nuanced truth saying something the Church cannot accept as true.
This is from Book 2 Chapter 2.
My question is:
- Why does the Church speak like that if the Church values being nuanced and often says that dichotomous thinking isn't what helps us?
Henrik |
Bob replied:
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Dear friend,
I think the answer is, that “context” is everything.
If the Pope were making an argument or doing polemics, he would likely incorporate more nuances and answer potential objections, but when one is just simply making a rhetorical point, there is no need.
In this context, he is not seeking to advance a truth that is absolute, but only a relative truth that can be understood implicitly by the audience.
For example, if I were to say “people are dumb,” and then go on to make some statement indicating the relevance and applicability of that, I have no need to address those that aren't dumb.
The point is simply taken for the truth as it plays out empirically. So in essence, nuance is only required in a context that requires it.
Peace,
Bob Kirby |
Henrik replied:
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Bob,
- What did you say?
- Why are you trying to be hard to understand?
Perhaps I tried to use philosophical hermeneutics to understand.
Most people might not be doing that.
I look always at how people express their message, i.e. Looking at the style and what kind of rhetoric is being used and whether that contradicts the truth.
Henrik |
Henrik followed up:
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Bob and Eric,
I need to add that a lot of the Psalms I pray sometimes sound like heresy or like people who wrote them are crazy.
When Psalm 145 says that God is so good that he gives all people good, I get upset cause it cannot be that even the Psalmist thought that nobody was starving I both physical n spiritual ways.
I don’t understand why saying "nobody is starving" is good but the Church loves it and uses it in mealtime prayer.
- So, are people in the Church using "poetic" language in which they say something that is false just to prove a point?
Thanks for the conversation!!
Henrik |
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