Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of Fantasia

In this post I'll comment on some representative passages in Robert Barron's Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith (2011). I already commented on one section:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/our-lady-of-guadalupe.html

I believe Barron has a virtual following second only to Pope Francis. That may be due in part to the theological vacuum in the hierarchy. So few bishops seem to be believers, even by Catholic standards. In addition, he has a certain charisma. A prissy, sissy, fussy, fusty old biddy like Cardinal Burke lacks the common touch and popular appeal. 

Barron is an eloquent, seductive mythmaker. His biblical prooftexts for Catholicism detach the text from the original meaning, and reattachment it to "development". Once theology is cut off from the sacred text, it takes on a life of its own, in ever-bolder flights of fantasy. The exercise has a snowball effect, as seminal errors accumulate and magnify. No longer constrained by the reality of revelation, it goes wherever imagination takes it. In some ways, Barron's book is a throwback to Chateaubriand's The Genius of Christianity. An apologetic heavy on aesthetics. Catholicism is too pretty not to be true!

Essential to the Catholic mind is what I would characterize as a keen sense of the prolongation of the Incarnation throughout space and time, an extension that is made possible through the mystery of the church. Catholics see God's continued enfleshment in the oil, water, bread, imposed hands, wine, and salt of the sacraments; they appreciate it in the gestures, movements, incensations, and songs of the Liturgy; they savor it in the texts, arguments, and debates of the theologians; they sense it in the graced governance of popes and bishops; they love it in the struggles and missions of the saints; they know it in the writings of Catholic poets and in the cathedrals crafted by Catholic architects, artists, and workers (3).

i) Notice how the "prolongation" of the Incarnation becomes increasingly diaphanous. On his model, what is not Incarnational? 

ii) Barron's fundamental error is failure to distinguish between providence and Incarnation. The Incarnation is a unique, unrepeatable, one-time event. But God is providentially active throughout history. 

Newman said that a complex idea is equivalent to the sum total of its possible aspects. This means, he saw, that ideas are only really known across great stretches of space and time, with the gradual unfolding of their many dimensions and profiles. The Incarnation is one of the richest and most complex ideas ever proposed to the mind, and hence it demands the space and time of the church in order fully to disclose itself (3).

That's a wedge for the theory of development.

St. Paul referred to Jesus as "the icon of the invisible God." By this he means that Jesus  is the sacramental sign of God, the privileged way of seeing what God looks like (6).

Here's an example of legend in the making: 

i) "Icon" is a loaded word that's acquired connotations it didn't have in Pauline usage. So Barron's rendering is anachronistic. 

ii) "Sacramental" is another loaded word that's foreign to Paul's statement.

iii) The "privileged way" is Barron's code language for hopeful universalism. 

But in the sweet invitation of the angel at the Annunciation…Mary's freedom and dignity are respected (89).

The Annunciation was an announcement, not an invitation. It was no more an invitation than God calling Abraham, Jeremiah, St. Paul, &c. 

She recapitulates all the great figures of the holy people…She is, accordingly, the daughter of Abraham, the first one to listen to God in faith; she is like Sarah, Hannah, and the mother of Samson, since she gave  birth while trusting in God against all expectations; she is the true Ark of the Covenant and the true temple, for she bore the divine presence in the most intimate way possible; she is like the authors of the Psalms and the books of Wisdom and Proverbs, for she becomes the very seat of Wisdom. And she is like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel–the prophets who longed for the coming of Messiah (92-93).

Instead of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, we now have The Heroine with a Thousand Faces. Why not go full Hindu and declare Mary the White Goddess with multiple avatars? Why not throw in Tinker Bell and Glenda the Good Witch while he's at it? 

We can read this story [Jn 2] at the literal level and see Mary as graciously acting to spare the young people embarrassment, but we can also read it more symbolically and appreciate Mary as expressing the prophetic longing of Israel. Wine–delicious, refreshing, intoxicating–is a sign, throughout the OT, of the divine life. Running out of wine, therefore, is an incisive description of the spiritual condition of Israel, alienated in its sin from God's grace. In asking Jesus to act, Mary is speaking according to the rhythms and cadences of the great prophets, who continually called upon Yahweh to visit his people… (94). 

i) As long as he's going to indulge in unbridged allegory, why stop there? What about the six stone water pots? Let's tease out their numerological import. And the composition of the water pots. The stone must have some emblematic significance. And the third day.

Of course, the reason Barron resorts to allegory, absent any textual clues, is because there's not nearly enough at the "literal level" of the Gospels to justify Catholic Mariology. 

ii) And even assuming, for argument's sake, that the text has this subtext, it hardly follows that you can read the narrator's subtle allusions back into Mary's mind. 

If she is the one through whom Christ was born, and if the church is Christ's mystical body, then she must be, in a very real sense, the mother of the church. She is the one through whom Jesus continues to be born in the hearts of those who believe (98). 

Notice the wild leaps of logic. The studied equivocation. 

i) Throughout the book he says the church is the "mystical" body of Christ. What does that mean? Where does he get that from Scripture–or does he?

ii) Does this mean that "in a very real sense," the church was virginally conceived? 

iii) Even if we wish to play along with the maternal metaphor, children outgrow their parents, so "in a very real sense," the church should outgrow Mary. 

…Mary, through a special grace, was preserved free from original sin from the first moment of her conception. Were this not the case, the angel would not have referred to her at the Annunciation as Kecharitomene (full of grace) [100].

i) Once again, notice the wild leaps of logic. Does kecharitomene actually mean "full of grace"? or is that reading the Vulgate back into the Greek? This is substituting tradition for what the text actually says. 

ii) In context, Mary is favored by God to be messiah's mother. Gabriel can't refer to someone as the object of divine favor unless they were immaculately conceived? Because Catholic Mariology is so underdetermined by Scripture, Catholic theologians must inflate the few references to Mary in the NT. 

Just as the holy of holies in the Temple was kept pure and inviolate, so the definitive temple, the true Ark of the Covenant, which is Mary herself, should be all the more untrammeled (100).

i) The Bible never says Mary is the ark of the covenant. That's another example of Catholics building on a false premise.

ii) In John's Gospel, Jesus is the true temple. But in Catholic Mariology, Mary replaces Jesus. 

iii) The inviolate purity of the inner sanctum is an example of symbolic holiness, not moral holiness. These were inanimate objects. The high priest was ritually holy, not morally holy. So the attempted analogy breaks down. 

…the stories concerning the young Mary's close association  with the Temple in Jerusalem (found in the Protoevangelium of James, a 3C text) are, if not necessarily historically accurate, nevertheless theologically suggestive (100). 

Now he has to pad out Catholic Mariology by appeal to a historically worthless apocryphal work. Why not appeal to the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Judas while he's at it?

After recounting the tale of Bernadette, he says:

What is the Immaculate Conception but a great act of healing on the part of Jesus…How appropriate that Mary's ratification of that title would be forever accompanied by and associated with, the curing of the sick (104).

i) To prop up the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he must force a fanciful parallel between the Immaculate Conception and Lourdes. Both are about "healing". That's such a reach. 

ii) Moreover, only an infinitesimal fraction of desperately ill pilgrims who go to Lourdes return healed. Where is Mary's mojo? If "the Blessed Mother" intended the site to be a place where the faithful receive miraculous healing, why is almost no one healed here?

This [Platonic] philosophy is utterly alienate to the biblical imagination, which does not envision salvation as the separation of the soul from the body, but rather as the transfiguration of the entire self. To give just two examples of this pervasive attitude, the authors of both the book of Revelation and the first letter of Peter dream not of an escape from the world but of "a new heavens and a new earth" (1 Pet 3:13). The dogma of the assumption of Mary describe the full salvation of this prime disciple of Jesus–Mary's entry, in the fullness of her person, into the presence of God (104-5).

And where's the evidence that it actually happened? Or is make-believe sufficient?

In entrusting Mary to John ("Behold, your mother"), Jesus was in a real sense, entrusting Mary to all those who would be friends of Jesus down through the ages (108).

i) How does that actually follow from the concrete circumstances of the situation? 

ii) That makes no sense even on its own grounds. Jesus entrusts Mary to the care of John. If you're going to turn that into a general analogy for Christians, that means Christians have a duty to protect and provide for Mary. But that's the opposite of the Catholic doctrine, according to which Christians should entrust themselves to the care of Mary, who will protect and provide for them. So the comparison is backwards. 

The Blessed Mother's basic task is always to draw people into deeper fellowship with her son. The church's conviction is that the Blessed Mother continues to say yes to God and to "go in haste" on a mission around the world (108).

This is building on one false premise after another. Inventing the evidence they need. Inventing evidence out of whole cloth. 

The Gospel (Jn 21) curiously enough, tells us that Peter was naked (gymnos in the Greek) and threw on some clothes before going to the Lord. This detail is meant to remind us of the story of Adam in the book of Genesis (120).

Seriously? Isn't that strained parallel drawn at the expense of historicity? Was Peter, in an utterly different situation and setting, recapitulating the story of Adam? That's the kind of artificial symmetry you encounter in fiction. Given his interpretation, does Barron think that really happened? Or is that the narrator crafting a story to evoke that comparison? 

Prior to the fall, Adam walked in easy and unself-conscious nakedness before God, but after the primal sin, he hid himself, ashamed of his nudity. So Peter, still deeply regretting his denial of Christ, covers up his nakedness in the presence of Jesus. (120).

That's not how I interpret the account:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/07/it-is-lord.html

And notice, too, how Jesus uses the future tense–"I will build my church" (Mt 16:18). Therefore he cannot be speaking simply of Peter personally but of all those who will participate in his charism throughout the centuries (122).

I don't think Peter is the primary referent:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/09/hellmouth.html

The church is a sacrament of Jesus and, as such, shares in the very being, life, and energy of Christ (143).

By Catholic stipulation, the church is a sacrament, and as such shares those properties. Circular proof. 

According to the inexhaustibly rich metaphor proposed by St. Paul, the church is the body of Jesus, an organism composed of interdependent cells, molecules, and organs. Christ is the head of a mystical body… (143).

i) Because metaphors are open-textured, it's necessary for the reader to respect its intended scope. 

ii) I seriously doubt Paul had cellular and molecular biology in mind. And I'm sure the original audience did not. 

"I am the vine, you are the branches" (Jn 15:5; cf. Jn 6:53).

If that's a parable of the church, notice the absence of any mediating structures. No papacy, episcopate, priesthood, or sacraments. 

"Whatever you did for one of these least bothers of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25)…[Jesus states] that these acts are performed for him personally, but this can make sense only on the condition that the poor, hungry, and the imprisoned belong to Jesus, that they are incorporate with him (144-45).

That they are "incorporate" with him is hardly the only condition on which it makes sense. Rather, it assumes the principle of representation. You honor or dishonor Christ by how you treat Christians, as representatives of Christ. Jesus illustrates the principle in the parable of the wicked tenants (Mt 21:33-46).

Yet this mysterious Christ insisted that Saul was harassing him personally–"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting"–a claim that makes sense only on the condition that Jesus has identified himself with his followers in a manner so vivid and incarnate that when they suffer, he suffers (145). 

That they "incarnate" him is scarcely the only condition on which that makes sense. It's not that Jesus vicariously suffers through them. Rather, this is, once again, the principle of representation. 

The church is one because its founder is one (156).

Is that supposed to be an entailment relation? Are crocodiles one because God made them? Is there's only one Creator, does that mean there's only one crocodile?

I don't deny a sense in which there's one church. I'm just drawing attention to the flaccid, specious logic by which Barrow tries to prove Catholicism. 

…the many faiths, religions, and philosophies do, in fact, to varying degrees, already participate in the fullness of Christ's gifts and are hence implicitly related to the Catholic Church…Buddhists and Catholics come together in a keen sense of the finally ineffable quality of ultimate reality, and in their commitment to definite forms of mystical contemplation. Catholics and Hindus share a profound sense of the immanence of God to the world. All of these points of contact, all of these "rays of light," are not only semina verbi (seeds of the word) but also semina catholicitatis (seed of catholicity). (166).

i) A gear-shearing effort to retrofit traditional Catholic exclusivism to mesh with modern Catholic inclusivism. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is twisted 180º by shoehorning everyone into the church, so that no one is outside the church. That's unrecognizable in relation to the original meaning of the slogan. 

ii) Notice the abject pluralism and syncretism. 

…the Eucharist is nothing other than a sacramental extension of the Incarnation across space and time, the manner in which Christ continues to abide, in an embodied way, with his church (188).

This is Humpty Dumpty hermeneutics: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

God creates the whole of the universe through the power of his word: "Let there be light," says the Lord, "and there was light" (Gen 1:3)…Jesus says "Lazarus, come out!" (Jn 11:43), and he came out; "Little girl, I say to you, arise!" (Mk 5:41), and she got up: "Child, your sins are forgiven" (Mk 2:5), and they are forgiven. The night before he died, Jesus took bread and said, "This is my body…" (Lk 22:19)…Since Jesus's word is the divine Word, it is not merely descriptive but transformative. It creates, sustains, and changes reality at the most fundamental level. When at the consecration the priest moves into the mode of first-person quotation, he is not speaking in his own person but in the person of Jesus–and that's why those words change the elements (191-92). 

Notice the bait-n-switch as Barrow makes indicatives equivalent to imperatives. Let's plug his logic into a couple of test cases:

This is my Son (Mt 3:17)

By his logic, the Father's statement is transformative rather than descriptive. This is the moment at which Jesus became the Son of God. He wasn't the Son of God before the Father's transformative utterance. Rather, the Father, through the creative power of the divine word, changes Jesus into the Son of God!

This is a wicked generation (Lk 11:29)

It wasn't a wicked generation before Jesus said that. Rather, it's his statement that makes it a wicked generation! 

Finally, Barron has two paeans to Thomas Merton (225-32; 246-49). You have to wonder if Barron wrote this before Merton's sexcapades were exposed. 

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/04/on-thomas-merton-mary-gordon-review/

Likewise, he idolizes Pope John-Paul II (e.g. 151-54). Yet his reputation is forever stained by his indolence in the clerical abuse scandal. 

Catholicism is a cautionary tale about taking a wrong turn, then continuing to drive in the wrong direction so that a driver is increasingly distant from the right destination. It's especially dangerous when there's a serious mismatch between religion and reality, because religion is about ultimate things. And these aren't just innocent mistakes. Rather, Sacred Tradition locks in primitive errors that lead to ever-expanding error. Like a whirlwind, people can be swept up and swept away by the inner momentum of a religious tradition, especially one with the theatricality of Catholicism.