Classic Keating: On Matatics

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JCrawf

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This should bring back some memories. ;)

GERRY MATATICS MIMICS HOWARD DEAN

The former governor of Vermont has been the object of jokes on late-night talk shows because of his now-famous scream, issued after he came in third in the Iowa caucuses.

Last week I was the object of screaming by Gerry Matatics. After thirteen years' absence, he came to San Diego to give a talk. The evening ended with him gesticulating and yelling at me at the top of his lungs. It was a weird and disturbing sight.

During the question period that followed his talk, someone asked whether an unbaptized person could go to heaven. Matatics--who a decade ago declared that he had undergone a "second conversion" and had moved from conservative Catholic to Traditionalist Catholic--gave an answer that closed heaven's gate to almost anyone who is not a formal member of the Catholic Church.

The followers of the late Fr. Leonard Feeney, who was best known for his rigorist interpretation of "no salvation outside the Church," exist on a narrow but real spectrum. Some, such as Matatics's friends at the New Hampshire-based Saint Benedict Center, are at one end and say a person must be a formal member of the Catholic Church to be saved. They take the most hardline position.

Other Feeneyites permit a little more leeway but still end up with a position that is more rigorous than that taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (846-848) or by Vatican II (Lumen Gentium 16) or by the most conservative pope of the nineteenth century, Pius IX. Feeneyites leave either no or little room for "invincible ignorance."

Matatics, who at his seminars used to distribute literature from the Saint Benedict Center, makes a tiny distinction between that group's position and his own and uses that distinction to claim that he is not really a Feeneyite. (If not, why distribute the most hardline Feeneyite literature?)

Unlike the Saint Benedict Center, he is open to the possibility that a catechumen who desires baptism but who dies before being baptized might be saved through what is commonly called "baptism of desire." But such a catechumen's salvation is not sure, says Matatics. It might be that he is not saved after all.

Anyone further removed from the Catholic Church would have even less hope--or no hope--of salvation. This would include not just the unbaptized but also Protestants. (Matatics has said in public that he expects his own parents to go to hell, because they remain Protestants.)

In Church history there cannot have been many cases of catechumens dying on the way to their baptisms. As a practical matter, therefore, Matatics's position reduces to the position of the Saint Benedict Center: Formal members of the Catholic Church are saved, and everyone else is lost.

The members of the Saint Benedict Center indisputably deserve the moniker "Feeneyite." In my opinion, Matatics does too. After all, there are Feeneyites who are more generous than he is in their interpretation of "no salvation outside the Church." He is midway along a narrow spectrum, but he is still on the spectrum.

Although for years Matatics has adopted a position almost indistinguishable from that of the Saint Benedict Center, the members of which do not object to being called "Feeneyites," he has insisted that the label should not be applied to him.

One can understand his reluctance: Being identified with a fringe movement is not a good way to ensure speaking engagements. But "pigs is pigs," and Matatics should cease objecting to a label that fits.

He has espoused the Feeneyite understanding of salvation but has been unwilling to go by the Feeneyite designation. He embraces the theory but not the name of the theory. He has not been candid with his audiences and so has done them a disservice.

THE SCREAM

Toward the end of the evening, Matatics referred to my January 13 E-Letter, which may be found at:
www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040113.asp

In that E-Letter I wrote about "The Point," a little journal printed by Feeney's original group in the 1950s. I listed the titles of the twelve issues published in 1957. All but one was about Jews and the problems they allegedly cause. I said that Feeney's group was "preoccupied with the Jews, to the point of obsession."

Not so, said Matatics. The Feeneyites were not obsessed with Jews. They simply were concerned about the salvation of Jews. I rolled my eyes.

In the U.S. of the 1950s, Jews were outnumbered by Protestants. They also were outnumbered by people of no religion. Jews then, as now, represented about two percent of the American population. Subtract Catholics from the mix, and Jews represented about three percent of the population.

So why were eleven out of twelve issues of "The Point" focused on perceived problems with Jews? Where were the articles about Protestants, members of Eastern religions, and unbelievers? They, too, by Feeneyite standards, are not on the road to salvation. Why so much supposed solicitude for Jews but not for Baptists or Hindus or agnostics?

I reminded Matatics's audience that Feeney's men used to go to Boston Common and give public lectures. When talking about Jews, they used slurs such as "kike."

A woman in the small audience asked what "kike" meant. I explained that, with respect to Jews, it was the analogue of the "n-word."

Someone using the latter word to refer to blacks is suspected of racism--and rightly so. Similarly, someone using "kike" to refer to Jews is suspected of anti-Semitism.

Matatics turned up the volume. His friends at the Saint Benedict Center were not anti-Semites, he yelled.

I didn't say they were, I replied. I had been writing about the original Feeneyite group of the 1950s. In my E-Letter I noted that today's Saint Benedict Center reprints articles from "The Point." I asked whether today's group repudiates the anti-Semitism of the 1950s. My words were lost in the din caused by Matatics and his fans.

He was visibly agitated. His voice went from a yell to a scream and eventually broke. He was on a rant. I couldn't make out what he was saying, and I couldn't get a word in.

But I could get out. I was standing by the door, and I went through it, Matatics screaming after me. I was relieved that he didn't chase me as I made for the hotel's exit.

As I stood in the night chill, several people gathered around me, shaking their heads at what they had witnessed. One smiled consolingly and said the evening had reduced my time in purgatory.

Maybe, maybe not. But I know it reduced, almost to oblivion, the residual regard I had for Gerry Matatics, and it reaffirmed my belief that he would do the Church a favor by finding another line of work.

Pax Vobiscum,

John
 

D'Ann

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I love Karl Keating...

I pray for his website too... When I first started to learn about Catholicism, we would listen to him (my family and I) on the radio and he made such perfect sense. His radio show always has a question/answer time and many people were asking questions that I was tooo chicken to ask... anyway... I pray that Jerry will find his way back to the True and Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church... in full communion with the Pope in Rome. I don't know that much about the Feenynites... but I have heard about them a little bit... can't remember what it was that I heard about them... other than ... well... what Karl said.

God's Peace,

Debbie
 
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JCrawf

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D'Ann said:
I love Karl Keating...

He definately is awesome. :thumbsup:

I pray for his website too...

I pray for the website and EWTN. Hope things are picking up for EWTN.

When I first started to learn about Catholicism, we would listen to him (my family and I) on the radio and he made such perfect sense.

Gives me an idea...maybe I should start a thread that is updated weekly with audio tracts of Catholic Answers in the General Theology forum. :holy:

I pray that Jerry will find his way back to the True and Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church... in full communion with the Pope in Rome.

Indeed.

I don't know that much about the Feenynites... but I have heard about them a little bit... can't remember what it was that I heard about them... other than ... well... what Karl said.

Unfortunately, it seems that there might be a few around, especially of "Traditionalist" persuasion. Spent more than enough time on that in the Sungenis thread with a few that seem of that persuasion. :eek:

Anyways, good to hear from you and take care.

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. :crossrc:

Pax Tecum,

John
 
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D'Ann

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JCrawf said:
He definately is awesome. :thumbsup:

Yep... I love it when he gets going and goes on and on about a subject that is controversial. He always makes sense.

I pray for the website and EWTN. Hope things are picking up for EWTN.

Me too.


Gives me an idea...maybe I should start a thread that is updated weekly with audio tracts of Catholic Answers in the General Theology forum. :holy:

I like that idea... that would be awesome. I don't think that the General Theology forum will go for it though... but maybe here in the OBOB for those who are apologists who minister in the GT forum can benefit from them and thus maybe have a sticky. But then again, do people really look at the stickies? I think it's a good idea.


Unfortunately, it seems that there might be a few around, especially of "Traditionalist" persuasion. Spent more than enough time on that in the Sungenis thread with a few that seem of that persuasion. :eek:

Yes... I've read some of those posts... scary. You and others need to team up and strategize... on this subject :)

Anyways, good to hear from you and take care.

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. :crossrc:

Pax Tecum,

John

Good to hear from you too... and you take care too... I really need to learn Latin... lol :)

God's Peace,

Debbie
 
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marciadietrich

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At the risk of sounding like a traddie apologist, I'm not sure that the events that occured between Matatics and Keating early on (which that perspective might still be up on Gerry Matatics website www.gerrymatatics.org ) didn't help give Matatics a kick in the wrong direction. Where he began to lean more towards the extreme traditional section of the Church because he could find support there for his work.

All we have here even is Keating's perspective on the events that night. And I'm not sure it is right for him to have ended with the slam at the end about Matatics should get out of apologetics. Gerry Matatics is a very able apologist, I would say among the best - better than Hahn, IMO - and it is a real crying shame that this all has happened.
 
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JCrawf

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JeffreyLloyd

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QuantaCura said:
I like Karl too. It was the Catholic Answers web page that really started to make me believe that everything the Catholic Church taught was absolutely true.

Me too. I'm Catholic today because of Jimmy and Karl.

:clap: :thumbsup:
 
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JCrawf

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anawim said:
Oddly enough, Gerry Matatics was the first apologist that I heard about 11 years ago. He's a really funny guy, when he isn't trying to be his own magisterium. I pray he will come back into the mainstream.

That's pretty much my main argument against so-called Traditionalists is that they do try to be "more Catholic than the Pope." Stephen Ray puts it best in his talks about how one of the problems for non-Catholics is the power play they have with Sola Scriptura which essentially makes them their own Pope. This may be the temptation for those that go "Traditionalist," or even sedevacantist as well.

Pax Tecum,

John
 
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