There's a much greater potential pool of readers. In English, I can reach people from all over, while in Portuguese, I can only reach the extreme minority that reads such a peripheral language. It's better to be a small fish in the ocean than a big fish in a shallow lake.
I am again intrigued by your perspective on Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo XIV. I have not read anyone in the US that has the sense that you do about it. Even insightful writers I really admire seem to be stuck in the Left/Right dichotomy on this issue. The only ones who appear to have a similar sense of things are the guys at New Polity. They have just released a new book on the theology of Pope Francis that seems to address some of the things you are talking about (I haven't read it yet, though).
I like to think you are onto something, but it seems almost too ideal. I find it hard to believe that the dismantling of modernism is happening before my eyes, that is, if I had eyes to see it. There is a re-paganisation happening right now, and this may be doing some of that work, for good or bad. But to think that Pope Francis had such a clear sense of it and acted on it seems remarkable to me. And the idea that Pope Leo will supercharge Pope Francis's approach in the role of a Leo pope seems too good to be true.
It's not the dismantling of (Church) Modernism, but the decadence of Modernity. (Church) Modernism is only the application of Modern thinking to the ecclesial context (hence the Modern political dichotomy of Right vs Left, "conservatism" vs "progressivism").
In a moment when Modernity is fragmented and chaotic because it's in the last stages of its decadence, (Church) Modernism also suffers. It doesn't mean a return to pre-modernity, as there is no coming back in History (Ortega y Gasset wrote that if we were to go back in time, we'd just go through everything again...), but we cannot know what will come, the next challenges the Church will face in the next centuries.
For now, however, the most important thing is not to be stuck in an artificial division that prevents spreading the Gospel. As I just wrote a friend (in Portuguese, so I can't just copy and paste here, unfortunately), Church teaching is always the same, but the society around it changes and, when it tries to read Church teaching, it falsely interprets it in terms of "progressivism" and "conservatism".
For instance, in the US 100 years ago, the Democrats were the racist and reactionary party, and the Republicans would read the eternally anti-racist teaching of the Church as meaning that the Church was "progressive", just like them. Now, the situation in civil society has inverted its polarity, but the Church, as always, keeps repeating the same thing.
If one wants to understand the new Pope, Modern categories are irrelevant; what matters is reading Rerum Novarum, Centesimus Annus, etc. By picking the name Leo, he made the social teaching of the Church central to his mission. That's the right frame; "right" and "left", "conservatism" and "progressivism", are categories that matter a lot out of the Church, but don't provide an adequate frame of reference within her.
Let me see if I understand you. The Church is fixing and redeeming Modernism like it did with paganism. We must go through Modernism, not try to erase it. For paganism, it was monasticism that did that work to a large degree. Now it is the popes who are doing it for Modernism. At least it appears so through their writings.
I interpreted Pope Francis's choice of name in light of what Chesterton said about St. Francis, that he was the fruit of the Church's successful battle with paganism, that the Church had filtered and redeemed Antiquity, allowing St. Francis to come with a proper understanding of nature and a proper relationship with it. And this also the story of the flourishing of the 12th and 13th centuries. My excitement is about this possibility, not that we will return to the 12th century, but that we may be going through another cycle like this one. And Pope Francis is a possible instigator of that. Maybe it is a stretch, but this is how I read you. Maybe I am putting my thoughts into your mouth!
In a way, yes. Paganism was the enemy now, and Modern thinking has been the enemy for the last 500 years. For the last 100+ years, it has taken the form of (left- and right-wing) Modernism within the Church, just as before it took the form of Jansenism, and so on.
But Modern thinking is falling down due to its inner incoherences. While 60 or 70 years ago a Communist would believe in all the orthodox mythology of his sect, now the biggest Communist-governed power on Earth (China) has a Fascist system (in which the means of production belong to private hands, but the State dictates what the private owners shall do - something closer to the South Korean than the North Korean systems!), and nobody bats an eye. Ideological systems are not coherent anymore. The same goes for the American system; a few decades ago, it would have been unthinkable to drag an ex-president into the mud about hush money paid to a prostitute and turn it into 30+ felonies, just as it would be unthinkable for a President to ignore judicial review of his actions. The whole thing is unraveling.
The loss of power of the Modern factions within the Church is primarily the result of this lack of coherence. It took a so-called "Traditionalist" to create the most Modern things that ever happened inside the Church: Bishops without dioceses and without teaching seats (cathedra, hence cathedral), whose strict function is to minister illicit sacraments, like a sort of pseudo-ecclesial Pez candy dispenser. One hundred years ago, there were still priests like that, who couldn't preach or hear confessions because they didn't have the full course of studies, and only celebrated (homily-less) Mass. That's what the Lefebvrists Bishops do; no wonder the Oriental schismatics don't accept the validity of their consecrations! Left-wing Modernists also created plenty of havoc, of course.
It horrified the non-Western Bishops to such a degree that they accepted willingly the action of the Holy Spirit and elected first Francis, then Leo, to guide the Church away from this madness.
However, nothing is 100% good or bad in anything under the Sun. The Church will keep whatever is good and throw away whatever is bad in Modern thinking, just as she did with Paganism and all other former enemies she left by the roadside.
Now, both the prevalence of Modern thinking (and Modern institutions, of course) around the world and the swiftness of its decadence make the fall of Rome a very fitting precedent. After Rome fell, in a few centuries Europe entered what was the apex of Western civilization, at least so far. But nobody could have predicted it before it happened, just as nobody can predict what the social and political environment will be in a couple of centuries from now.
Thanks for this. Very interesting. I did not know this about SSPX. You consider the apex of Western Civilization the Middle Ages? The Carolingian Renaissance, or the 12th-13th Centuries?
Well, I'm extremely biased, as I'm a Thomist. St. Thomas lived in the 13th century, so that's what I'd pick. But the greatest hallmark of a civilization's apex is its stability, so it's more important that there have been centuries of common culture and artistic and intellectual production than that in this or that sub-period, this or that great thing was done.
Hear “Leon XIV” was one of the happiest moments in my life, and much happier when he confirmed he picked “Leon” due Leon XIII and Rerum Novarum. Gob bless the Holy Father!
I'm a (brazilian) convert of 5 years and before last night I had never come across your material. A friend recommended me your YouTube channel and I am both amazed at your knowledge and also a bit sad that it took me this long to find out about you.
With so much contradicting/confusing catholic content online my spiritual life has been a bit of a rollercoaster since my conversion, your classes would have surely saved me a lot of suffering and spiritual damage had I come accross them earlier...oh well, better late than never!
I was a bit worried about the lack of recent material on the youtube channel but I'm very happy to discover your active substack. I'll be praying that our Lord preserves your health, both physical and spiritual.
I was really looking forward to read your thoughts about Leo XIV !! By the way, why writing in english here?
There's a much greater potential pool of readers. In English, I can reach people from all over, while in Portuguese, I can only reach the extreme minority that reads such a peripheral language. It's better to be a small fish in the ocean than a big fish in a shallow lake.
I am again intrigued by your perspective on Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo XIV. I have not read anyone in the US that has the sense that you do about it. Even insightful writers I really admire seem to be stuck in the Left/Right dichotomy on this issue. The only ones who appear to have a similar sense of things are the guys at New Polity. They have just released a new book on the theology of Pope Francis that seems to address some of the things you are talking about (I haven't read it yet, though).
I like to think you are onto something, but it seems almost too ideal. I find it hard to believe that the dismantling of modernism is happening before my eyes, that is, if I had eyes to see it. There is a re-paganisation happening right now, and this may be doing some of that work, for good or bad. But to think that Pope Francis had such a clear sense of it and acted on it seems remarkable to me. And the idea that Pope Leo will supercharge Pope Francis's approach in the role of a Leo pope seems too good to be true.
It's not the dismantling of (Church) Modernism, but the decadence of Modernity. (Church) Modernism is only the application of Modern thinking to the ecclesial context (hence the Modern political dichotomy of Right vs Left, "conservatism" vs "progressivism").
In a moment when Modernity is fragmented and chaotic because it's in the last stages of its decadence, (Church) Modernism also suffers. It doesn't mean a return to pre-modernity, as there is no coming back in History (Ortega y Gasset wrote that if we were to go back in time, we'd just go through everything again...), but we cannot know what will come, the next challenges the Church will face in the next centuries.
For now, however, the most important thing is not to be stuck in an artificial division that prevents spreading the Gospel. As I just wrote a friend (in Portuguese, so I can't just copy and paste here, unfortunately), Church teaching is always the same, but the society around it changes and, when it tries to read Church teaching, it falsely interprets it in terms of "progressivism" and "conservatism".
For instance, in the US 100 years ago, the Democrats were the racist and reactionary party, and the Republicans would read the eternally anti-racist teaching of the Church as meaning that the Church was "progressive", just like them. Now, the situation in civil society has inverted its polarity, but the Church, as always, keeps repeating the same thing.
If one wants to understand the new Pope, Modern categories are irrelevant; what matters is reading Rerum Novarum, Centesimus Annus, etc. By picking the name Leo, he made the social teaching of the Church central to his mission. That's the right frame; "right" and "left", "conservatism" and "progressivism", are categories that matter a lot out of the Church, but don't provide an adequate frame of reference within her.
Let me see if I understand you. The Church is fixing and redeeming Modernism like it did with paganism. We must go through Modernism, not try to erase it. For paganism, it was monasticism that did that work to a large degree. Now it is the popes who are doing it for Modernism. At least it appears so through their writings.
I interpreted Pope Francis's choice of name in light of what Chesterton said about St. Francis, that he was the fruit of the Church's successful battle with paganism, that the Church had filtered and redeemed Antiquity, allowing St. Francis to come with a proper understanding of nature and a proper relationship with it. And this also the story of the flourishing of the 12th and 13th centuries. My excitement is about this possibility, not that we will return to the 12th century, but that we may be going through another cycle like this one. And Pope Francis is a possible instigator of that. Maybe it is a stretch, but this is how I read you. Maybe I am putting my thoughts into your mouth!
In a way, yes. Paganism was the enemy now, and Modern thinking has been the enemy for the last 500 years. For the last 100+ years, it has taken the form of (left- and right-wing) Modernism within the Church, just as before it took the form of Jansenism, and so on.
But Modern thinking is falling down due to its inner incoherences. While 60 or 70 years ago a Communist would believe in all the orthodox mythology of his sect, now the biggest Communist-governed power on Earth (China) has a Fascist system (in which the means of production belong to private hands, but the State dictates what the private owners shall do - something closer to the South Korean than the North Korean systems!), and nobody bats an eye. Ideological systems are not coherent anymore. The same goes for the American system; a few decades ago, it would have been unthinkable to drag an ex-president into the mud about hush money paid to a prostitute and turn it into 30+ felonies, just as it would be unthinkable for a President to ignore judicial review of his actions. The whole thing is unraveling.
The loss of power of the Modern factions within the Church is primarily the result of this lack of coherence. It took a so-called "Traditionalist" to create the most Modern things that ever happened inside the Church: Bishops without dioceses and without teaching seats (cathedra, hence cathedral), whose strict function is to minister illicit sacraments, like a sort of pseudo-ecclesial Pez candy dispenser. One hundred years ago, there were still priests like that, who couldn't preach or hear confessions because they didn't have the full course of studies, and only celebrated (homily-less) Mass. That's what the Lefebvrists Bishops do; no wonder the Oriental schismatics don't accept the validity of their consecrations! Left-wing Modernists also created plenty of havoc, of course.
It horrified the non-Western Bishops to such a degree that they accepted willingly the action of the Holy Spirit and elected first Francis, then Leo, to guide the Church away from this madness.
However, nothing is 100% good or bad in anything under the Sun. The Church will keep whatever is good and throw away whatever is bad in Modern thinking, just as she did with Paganism and all other former enemies she left by the roadside.
Now, both the prevalence of Modern thinking (and Modern institutions, of course) around the world and the swiftness of its decadence make the fall of Rome a very fitting precedent. After Rome fell, in a few centuries Europe entered what was the apex of Western civilization, at least so far. But nobody could have predicted it before it happened, just as nobody can predict what the social and political environment will be in a couple of centuries from now.
Thanks for this. Very interesting. I did not know this about SSPX. You consider the apex of Western Civilization the Middle Ages? The Carolingian Renaissance, or the 12th-13th Centuries?
Well, I'm extremely biased, as I'm a Thomist. St. Thomas lived in the 13th century, so that's what I'd pick. But the greatest hallmark of a civilization's apex is its stability, so it's more important that there have been centuries of common culture and artistic and intellectual production than that in this or that sub-period, this or that great thing was done.
Edit: typo
Saint Thomas Aquinas lived in the 13th century, not in the 11th.
Hear “Leon XIV” was one of the happiest moments in my life, and much happier when he confirmed he picked “Leon” due Leon XIII and Rerum Novarum. Gob bless the Holy Father!
Greetings professor!
I'm a (brazilian) convert of 5 years and before last night I had never come across your material. A friend recommended me your YouTube channel and I am both amazed at your knowledge and also a bit sad that it took me this long to find out about you.
With so much contradicting/confusing catholic content online my spiritual life has been a bit of a rollercoaster since my conversion, your classes would have surely saved me a lot of suffering and spiritual damage had I come accross them earlier...oh well, better late than never!
I was a bit worried about the lack of recent material on the youtube channel but I'm very happy to discover your active substack. I'll be praying that our Lord preserves your health, both physical and spiritual.
Best regards and salve Maria!
Thanks for your prayers and kind words.