Quanta Cura II?

By DEACON JAMES TONER

“No one who lives in error is free” — Euripides (c.480-406 BC).

• + + On December 8, 1864, Blessed Pope Pius IX issued the encyclical Quanta Cura, expressing “great care” about the moral errors and evil of the day. In the attached Syllabus of Errors, the Holy Father enumerated 80 such errors, warning Catholics and all people of good conscience against the soul-searing, pernicious falsehoods and fallacies of those times. Is it well past time for Quanta Cura II? I think so.
  There is, however, an even larger question. Were we to receive the gift of another “syllabus of errors,” condemning the corrosive delusions of our day, would we have the mental and moral acuity to understand it? Or, to put it bluntly, are we just too stupefied — too dumb — to know and to care?
  Consider this testimony:
  St. Paul, exasperated: “O stupid Galatians” (3:1, NAB). Moses, frustrated: “Is the Lord to be thus repaid by you, O stupid and foolish people?” (Deut. 32:6, 28). Jeremiah, irate: “They are dumb and senseless” (10:8, 4:22). The psalmist, disgusted: “You stupid people! You fools, when will you be wise?” (94:8). Summarized by the prophet Hosea: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (4:6).
  Stupidity, in short, means prideful and pugnacious ignorance of one’s own ignorance. Humorist Josh Billings died in 1885, but he could have been describing us today: “The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so.” And, in our collective ignorance, we truculently defend that ignorance. Ignes fatui refers to the gaseous fads, fancies, and fashions of the day, dominating moral discussion in the absence of socially ostracized transcendent truth (cf. Jer. 18:15, Luke 6:22).
  To find and to follow God’s will is, we know, a moral challenge for us fallen creatures in a fallen world. First, though, we have a mental, or intellectual, challenge. We must learn to think wisely and well — not an easy task at a time when, and in a place where, the supernatural and natural virtues are perverted by wicked and wanton teaching (cf. Prov. 30:12, Gal. 2:4, Titus 1:16, 1 Tim. 6:5, 2 Tim. 4:3, Jude 1:4). That we are called to think “Eucharistically” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1327) is a truth rarely taught and rarely preached.
  Instead, certain moral mountebanks tell us about the need for permanent dogmas to be “received” in order to be binding. This is a kind of ethical ochlocracy — by which I mean the absurdity that right and wrong depend upon popularity. Bishop Fulton Sheen, in a remark as sagacious as it is sententious, taught us: “Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right.” Truth — and the educated intelligence to perceive and to practice it — does not depend upon the caprice of “the crowd” (contrast Luke 19:37-38 and 23:18; and see Prov. 29:25, John 12:43, and Gal. 1:10).
  For years I thought the famous passage in Matthew — “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (11:28) — was meant for the worker, an invitation to put down his hammer or hoe and to find some peace. Surely, it does mean that. It may also mean that, when mentally exhausted by the heat strokes inflicted in and by a soul-scorching, woke world, we need, and can have, the shade of Christ’s Truth, and we may for a time rest from the labors of books and pens (cf. Eccl. 12:12).
  In the Collect from the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost (TLM), we pray: “Graciously grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the spirit of always thinking and doing what is right, so that we who cannot exist, except through Thee, may live according to Thy will.” In a chaotic and often corrupt world, living according to God’s will requires both wisdom and diligence (1 Thess. 5:21-22), the products of faithful, fruitful education — not nearly so readily available today as it once was. The bells of St. Mary’s have long since stopped tolling, and Sr. Mary Benedict, the principal, is, sadly, long gone. (To save the search: Ingrid Bergman played Sr. Mary Benedict!)
  In the series Band of Brothers (about American paratroopers in World War II), one soldier worries that his unit is surrounded by Germans. An officer responds: “We’re paratroopers! We are supposed to be surrounded!” We are Catholics. We, too, are supposed to be surrounded by the enemy — and we are (See 1 John 5:19).
  We pray, as we should, to be delivered from sin. But prayer traditionally appealed for our deliverance from error as well as from sin. We know that sin is ubiquitous — as is error. Like the frog in the beaker, we are slowly dying of moral error, and we are, at times, too stupid to realize it. Notice that, often, we actually deny “error.” It’s hard, after all, for a relativist or a nihilist to label any notions as errors, and it’s hard, on that account, to “instruct the ignorant,” as the spiritual Works of Mercy direct us (cf. Daniel 12:3, 11:33).
  Like talking much, but doing nothing, about the weather, so do Catholics bemoan our no longer knowing the faith while obstinately resisting the image of ourselves as being ignorant. Such ignorance is customarily attributed to poor catechesis and to apathy or acedia (cf. CCC nn. 1784, 2733).
  But there is another reason for our entrenched ignorance. Would St. Paul (and Isaiah) say this to us today:
  “You will indeed listen but never understand, and you will indeed look but never perceive. For this people’s heart has become dull, and their ears have been stopped up, and they have shut their eyes, lest their eyes might see, their ears might hear, and their hearts might understand. Then they would be converted, and I would heal them” (Acts 28:26-27).
  Generally, today’s secondary school and college graduates do not compare favorably in the depth and breadth of their educations to their counterparts of decades ago. That means, in part, that even the younger Catholics who are still practicing the faith after high school and college are less prepared and less motivated to continue their Catholic learning, and to model and to teach it, than was true in older generations. That about 70 percent of Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence flows from dull minds as well as from dull hearts.
  One of the pastors whom I once served as a deacon (not in North Carolina) once upbraided me because my homilies, he said, were much too catechetical. He wanted me to tie the readings together in a few sentences and then speak in a way that left the people in the pews “feeling good about themselves.” Even if the priest tries to teach well in his homilies (something to which his listeners will be unaccustomed), the difficult question is this: Will they generally have the education to “process” a substantial sermon (by which I do not mean abstruse, academic, or erudite — but only a sound moral talk)? This question about fitting the teaching to the audience was sharply raised by our Lord (Matt. 7:6).
  Parishioners with dull minds demand dumbed-down homilies and catechesis. They “prefer their own judgment and [choose] to reject authoritative teachings” (CCC n. 1783; cf. n. 2526). This becomes a truly vicious circle. Today’s parishioners are, increasingly, graduates of failed school systems in which the “three r’s” are poorly taught, and moral lessons, if taught at all, clash with Christian truth. Faithful catechists must begin their vital task by disabusing parishioners of much of what they ostensibly know but which, in fact, “ain’t so.” Psalm 11 expressed this concern with better grammar and eloquence: What do you do when the foundations are destroyed?
  First, we must recognize that catechesis is in crisis, and that the foundations of education are destroyed. Never underestimate our parishioners’ educational needs, but never overestimate their educational preparation. Secular schools destroy the faith, and too many Catholic schools ignore the faith.
  Second, we must relearn to preach and to teach scripturally (cf. Matt. 7:24; Psalm 119:130).
  Third, parishes must seek the help of orthodox, highly competent, and very well motivated catechists educated at trustworthy Catholic institutions.
  Fourth, parents are the first teachers of their children (CCC, n. 2223 and n. 2688).
  Fifth, the pastor may delegate some teaching authority, but he may never delegate the responsibility for teaching the faith which comes to us from the apostles.
  We desperately need another clear and cogent Quanta Cura — and an accompanying “syllabus” of today’s moral errors. But, beyond that, we need the moral wit and wisdom to read them with full understanding and with deep concern. We are, however, in such an ethical stupor that even the most articulate and eloquent “syllabus” is unlikely to be written or, if miraculously written, then urgently read.
  “Make every effort,” St. Peter beseechingly taught us, “to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge” (2 Peter 1:5), thus battling, if not banishing, pernicious and persistent human stupidity. As we struggle in this vale of tears against sin, or the unholy, and against error, or the untrue, we might well recall the words of the venerable hymn At the Name of Jesus:

In your hearts, enthrone Him;
There, let Him subdue
All that is not holy,
All that is not true.