Restoring a Diverse Catholic Unity

[Michie]

With the breakdown of Christendom and the loss of any sort of Christian identity, we are experiencing a period of cultural homogeneity determined by the reigning power.

If you sailed down the Rhine not more than two hundred years ago, in what would soon become Germany, you would pass through regions with a variety of dialects, dress, food, and cultural norms. Every region brewed its own kind of beer, sang its own kind of music, and wore its own style of trachten (traditional dress). This multiplicity was made possible by a shared Catholic, and later merely Christian, identity which allowed each region to fully embrace its particular identity without compromising their unity as the Body of Christ.

This is in stark distinction with our modern day, where it has become near impossible to distinguish between even an American and a Russian based purely off of lifestyle. Where once there was a variety between the food, dress, and lifestyle of different cultures, now it’s blue jeans and McDonald’s everywhere you go. It might be trendy to overemphasize the “Murican” tendencies of Americans or the “traditional” tendencies of the Slavic regions, but, in reality, they both watch the same Hollywood garbage in their free time. Rarely are “Shenandoah” or “The Song of the Volga Boatmen” sung; all that can be heard are the popular sounds of Taylor Swift.

There is no real discernible difference between peoples and groups, but at the same time it seems as though everyone is LARPing the character that they wish to be associated with: Conservatives all sound the same, Liberals all look the same, Americans are loud and obnoxious, the French are rioting again, Russians are international bullies, etc. It’s like we all went to a list of stereotypes and tried to fit into one of the many premade roles that would allow us to conform to some identity group, as we sit alone in our rooms staring at bright blue screens. We have no identity except the ones premade for us. As the world falls apart, we play dress up.

Continued below.

Restoring a Diverse Catholic Unity

With the breakdown of Christendom and the loss of any sort of Christian identity, we are experiencing a period of cultural homogeneity determined by the reigning power.

crisismagazine.com

 

[Bob Crowley]

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that the multiplicity of cultures within Germany (to use the example given above) was due to a "shared Catholic and later merely Christian" tolerance.

The homogenisation of cultures today has a lot to do with the global village, with American TV shows beamed into homes world wide as one example. While I didnt watch an American show last night, I did watch most of "Endeavour" which is a British detective series set around Oxford in the early 1960's. Two hundred years ago that sort of cultural intrusion from the antipodes was completely unknown. At the same time I became aware of the devastation from the ferocious bushfires on Maui in Hawaii which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw this coming and mentioned it in his "Letters and Papers from Prison" way back in 1944.

"To Eberhard Bethge .... 30 April 1944 (about a year before he was executed in Flossenburg) ...

What is bothering me incessantly is the question of what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience - and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even those who honestly describe themselves as 'religious' do no in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by 'religious'.

Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian proclamation and theology rest on the 'religious a priori' of mankind. 'Christianity' has always been a form - perhaps the true form - of 'religion'. But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was a historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless - and I think that is the already more or less the case now (else how is it, for example, that this war (World War II), in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any 'religious' reaction?) - what does that mean for 'Christianity'? ..."

Obviously Bonhoeffer was under a lot of stress as he was in prison facing the death penalty for complicity in a plot to kill Hitler. And allied bombing raids on Berlin added another load.

But he also had time to think. I don't believe he really resolved the question of a "religionless Christianity" but he saw it coming. And Catholicism is going to be a part of that "religionless" Christianity. Whether God will force "religion" back onto the front page using Islam is a moot point, but since I believe God is going to drive us out into the universe, what will the Vatican mean for example to a bunch of space settlers eking out a precarious existence in the region of Alpha Centauri, with formidable artificial intelligence and robots a necessary part of their everyday life?