Merry Christmas to all.
An Open Letter to Deacon Norm Carroll
On March 14, 2010 at the **** AM Mass at ****** ****** Church in **** *********, NY, the homily was delivered by a gentleman who was introduced as Deacon Norm Carroll. Mr. Carroll, a visiting Deacon, whom I had not heard of before that morning, used this opportunity to promote a presentation that he would be delivering at the parish center over the course of four consecutive evenings the following week. In previewing his subject matter, he said some things that seemed suspect coming from a Catholic Deacon. Although curious to learn more about him, I knew that my schedule would not permit me to attend any of his presentations. When Mass was over, I discovered that a book authored by Deacon Carroll was being offered for sale in the church vestibule. I purchased a copy of Miracles, Messages and Metaphors- Unlocking the Wisdom of the Bible, and read it through. The “wisdom” therein moved me to write the following letter.
Deacon Carroll,
I have just finished reading your book, Miracles, Messages and Metaphors- Unlocking the Wisdom of the Bible, and am stunned and disappointed at some of the statements therein, that run counter to our Catholic faith as I have come to understand it. For the sake of brevity, I will call attention to only a few of the most notable points.
In the space of a 3-4 page introduction, you several times refer to our savior Jesus Christ, as a biblical “character.” What a curious choice of words. Is the Bible now to be considered a mere novel and our Lord a mere character in that narrative? One may refer to Christ in many ways, perhaps as a biblical “figure;” but for a Catholic Deacon to refer to Him as a mere “character” (however important a character) is disrespectful, and is, at least, an expression of doubt as to both the provable historical existence of Jesus Christ (a fact), and the belief in the reality of the miracles that are attributed to Him (which lies at the root of our faith as Catholics).
I was taken aback when you cited the musician Elton John, as a critic of “organized religion.” People like Elton John cite many hackneyed reasons why they do not care for so-called organized religion. Despite those stated reasons, the true reason should be clear. Organized religion, particularly in the Catholic framework, calls upon the faithful to exercise discipline in their lives. When sinners love their sins more than they love and appreciate God, they reach a point where they reject God in order to justify, and continue partaking in sin. The “hateful” teachings that Elton speaks of are not so at all; they are the legacy of Christ carried through the last 2,000 years by His Church. I am a sinner as surely as Elton John, but I can understand why a drug-addled homosexual would have issues with the Church that holds all sinners to a higher standard than our permissive, destructive secular culture. Christ’s message is a dual one- it at once expects much from us in resisting sin as we cope with temptation and the other vicissitudes of life (the part that Elton doesn’t like); yet if we commit sin and are truly contrite for having done so, we may be forgiven through the sacrament of confession. This is loving and life-supporting, not hateful.
You also point out that many people who consider themselves to be “spiritual” have also rejected organized religion. The term spirituality, as used in modern, common parlance, is a fuzzy, indescript, New Age concept; since it really means nothing, claims to possess it are largely meaningless. I can make claims to being spiritual all day long; yet, if I’m being unfaithful to my wife, stealing from my employer, not attending Mass on Sundays, and taking advice provided to me by psychic mediums in living my life, I am following an objectively destructive path. It is organized religion, specifically the one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church, which provides the structural template that all God’s children require in order to live fulfilling lives and to have the best chance of everlasting life in heaven. People need and require structure in their spiritual lives; without this structure that the Church faithfully provides, man’s moral straying would take an irrevocable turn for the worse.
In your book you pay much lip service to the importance of interpretation of scripture that is consistent with Catholic tradition, but continually praise non-Catholic beliefs that are at odds with both scripture and Catholic tradition (the two being inseparable). You claim that un-Catholic modes of interpreting scripture, such as “feminist criticism,” and “liberation theology” “have value,” although you don’t state what that value is.
For instance, you extol the virtues of early catholic priests being able to marry, and imply that the Church should allow it once again. It’s unclear why you believe this to be a boon. A priest cannot be married to the Church and responsible for his flock, while at the same time being married to a woman and responsible for his biological children. The conflict is clear to all except the minions of permissive, religious pluralism. The prospect of the Church allowing priests to marry is fraught with disastrous unintended consequences. The Church cares for its priests by providing them with housing and living expenses; if priests were to marry, would the Church then be responsible for housing and living expenses of their wives and children? In the event of divorce, will the Church pay alimony and child-support? This notion that priests should be able to marry is absurd on multiple levels.
You lump three very different things together when criticizing some Christians’ support of war, capital punishment, and greed, insisting that Jesus stands against these things. Let’s briefly consider each of them. In the case of war, there are times when unprovoked international aggression on the part of belligerent nations may not always be ameliorated with even the finest diplomatic entreaties. The military defeat of mass-murdering totalitarian despots may save the lives of more of God’s children in the long-run than leaving said aggressors to their ruthless pogroms. This is the essence of the Church’s “just war” doctrine (see the Catholic Catechism- section 2309). As for the death penalty- Catholic doctrine says that capital punishment is a legitimate means of the state to protect itself, to protect its citizens, against the cold-blooded murderers of innocents. It’s true, for instance that Pope John Paul II didn't feel that the death penalty was necessary any longer because we, in the modern world, have the ability to incarcerate people for life. But don’t mistake the pontiff’s view for doctrine; that was merely his theological opinion, not to be confused with a dogmatic/doctrinal change in Church law. You claim that greed is defended by some Christians to justify capitalism. First off, no good Catholic would ever embrace the evils of greed (one of the ancient, seven deadly sins). If you truly believe that the basic tenets of capitalism are rooted in greed, you are mistaken. Capitalism and the free market are governed by what Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, called enlightened self-interest. This concept held that the larger social good is best served by individuals pursuing private interests. There is no other country in the world where this principle has been allowed to thrive to a greater extent than in the United States
No good Catholic would dispute that many biblical stories have several strata of meaning. But our very faith is based upon the literalness of certain biblical events, including the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension. However, I was hard-pressed to find a single passage in your book where you acknowledge the literal meaning of just one Old or New Testament biblical account. According to you, every single word of scripture is symbolic of something else, never to be taken at face value.
You continually mention the “real” messages of the Bible, implying that the orthodox explanation of scripture offered to Catholics has been wrong all along, and that your non-literal interpretation of scripture will show us the true meaning. You repeatedly refer to biblical “myth.” It’s quite clear which stories in the Bible you consider to be myths, but unclear as to which ones you consider to be literal. Suffice to say, that each Biblical story that you choose to mention, is treated as non-literal myth. Almost as if to fend off criticism of these odd notions, you cite the existence of various bogeymen, such as fundamentalists and fundamentalism. Most Catholics already understand that Catholic interpretation of scripture is antithetical to fundamentalist interpretation; I get the impression that you feel that you’ll gain followers by attacking these straw men; after all, they are easy targets, and, let’s face it, red herrings. In chapter four of your book, you basically define a fundamentalist as one who believes that Bible stories are word-for-word true. Aside from the mandates of our Catholic faith, which calls us to literal belief in many of these events; science, reason and scholarship are often not at odds with that faith. You don’t even mention the sometimes overwhelming evidence, based upon science and reason, which point to the strong possibility that at least some of these tales are literal.
Let’s take the story of the flood in the book of Genesis as an example of something that may very well be a historical mention, as opposed to a strictly mythological lesson. The finding by archeologists of a snake fossil with legs in a limestone quarry in Israel; oil drillers on the bottom of the Black Sea discovering plant life that normally only grows in freshwater, along with the remains of a village, are powerful evidence that point to the literal reality of a great flood. The mention of a great flood in the stories of other cultures around that time period, including the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, looks as if they were more historical mentions rather than mythological ones. The world experienced the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago, close to the circa in which these stories were written. Any scriptural calculus that leaves out these considerations is necessarily flawed. Rather than acknowledge this, you instead dismiss those who believe it by calling them fundamentalists. Is this the kind of counter-intuitive reasoning that Catholics should be applying to scripture?
Much closer to the hearts of Catholics is the literalness of key events chronicled in the New Testament Gospels. You cleverly cast doubt in the minds of unsuspecting readers regarding the veracity of the narratives by reminding us that the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contradict one another. You conveniently ignore the other side of the argument. Perhaps the most important event in the New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for if Jesus did not rise (literally) the whole of our faith is built on nothing more than a big lie. The story of the resurrection cannot be dismissed as fictional or mythological, based on the application of the historical method, and when looking at the root independent sources of that portion of the gospel narrative. As biblical scholar Dr. William Lane Craig has pointed out, when you have a very early source, one that comes from records that are almost as old as the event/events they chronicle, agreeing with a later independent source (one that does not draw from the early source); then the biblical event is more likely to be historical. In the case of the story of the resurrection we have multiple, independent attestations to the same events from Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.
Another example of this is the story of Jesus’ entombment by Joseph of Arimathea. This is affirmed in the very old information handed on by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians and has been dated to within five years of the actual event. The burial story in the Book of Mark (the oldest of the gospels) is even closer to the events of Jesus’ life than the source material used by Paul. But make no mistake; these are two independent sources that bear witness to the same thing. Mark’s account is absent of the hallmarks of legendary embellishment, it is written in a simple, straight forward style; unlike the forged, apocryphal gospels of the 2nd century and after, which feature accounts that are colored by apologetical and theological motifs that are completely absent from the account in Mark.
Finally, another historical criterion to be applied has to do with identifying elements in the gospel narrative that were embarrassing to the early church or contrary to the antediluvian cultural sensibilities of the writers. For instance, the testimony of women was considered to be worthless in early 1st century Palestine
I naively believed that the bane of Gnosticism was something relegated to the distant past, or to the pernicious anti-Catholic drivel peddled by novelist Dan Brown, or believed by modern pagans in order to shore up the glittering generalities that they call spirituality. Historian Paul Johnson defines Gnosticism as, “…the lore of secret knowledge-systems” and “…an extremely insidious parasitic growth, which attaches itself like poisonous ivy to the trunk of a major religion. In Christianity, the early church fathers had to fight desperately to prevent it from smothering the faith.” Gnostic thinking is the sort of trash that corrupted the otherwise brilliant Carl Jung (who is quoted several times in your book) and leads at least, to the destructive belief in religious pluralism. I do not accuse you of being a Gnostic; nor do I necessarily accuse you of harboring overt Gnostic beliefs. Yet there is an unsettling pseudo-Gnostic tinge in much of what you write in your book.
I alluded above to religious pluralism, a concept that you mentioned favorably in both your homily and in your book. Although there are elements of truth in all religions, we as Catholics believe that the truth is fully and decisively revealed in Jesus. This is what He claimed; and you can’t, for instance, hold that Buddha’s and Jesus’ teachings are both true, because they are radically different, and even contradictory to one another. Religious pluralism has a nice, inclusive, politically correct ring to it, Deacon, but it’s logically impossible; all religions cannot be true, because they’re mutually contradictory. The Buddhist concept of God is radically different from the Islamic concept of God, which is radically different from the Judaic concept of God. The religious pluralist truly does a disservice to the world’s religions, because he holds that they all really believe the same thing, and so, denies their distinctiveness. The religions of the world reject religious pluralism because it deals in cloudy generalities, and holds a myopic view of their clear and irreconcilable differences, in order to draw dubious and ultimately irrelevant similarities.
We Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is the savior of the entire human race, not just our coreligionists. Should Catholics continue to pray for people of other faiths? Of course we should. Should people of different faiths reach out to one another in an effort towards good will in a civil society? They certainly should. Should we, as Catholics, water-down our deeply held beliefs in order to draw non-existent parallels with other faiths? Absolutely not!
In closing, I think it’s safe to say that I disagree with almost everything you wrote in your book and spoke about in your address to us at Mass.
