WWJD: Faith in the Age of Coronavirus

 

 

I. 

 

As even a neopagan nihilist such as myself knows, Mass, which incorporates Holy Communion, is the central rite within the Catholic Church and the source and summit of Christian life. 

 

Thus, preventing baptised members of the Church who are are otherwise in a state of grace from receiving the body and blood of Christ in the sacramental act of thanksgiving known as the Eucharist, is a deadly serious matter for those concerned (though whether it jeopardises their immortal soul I'm uncertain). 

 

And so the news that the archbishop of Berlin, Heiner Koch, has barred members of his flock from attending Mass unless they can prove they have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 is truly shocking and has rightly caused an outcry amongst Catholics worldwide. 

 

Were it not for his resurrection, the body of Jesus would surely be spinning in its tomb! I'm pretty sure he included the sick as amongst the blessed and often displayed the power to heal, taking the suffering of others upon himself, curing lepers, etc. I can't imagine he would turn his back upon the unjabbed or separate them off from his other followers.   

 

 

II. 

 

It is, as I say, shocking - even for an unbeliever and self-styled anti-Christ. But, it isn't surprising having read Byung-Chul Han's analysis of the pandemic and the manner in which Covid-19 has reduced us to a society of survival:

 

"The virus is a mirror. It shows what society we live in. We live in a survival society that is ultimately based on fear of death. Today survival is absolute [...] All the forces of life are being used to prolong life. A society of survival loses all sense of the good life. Enjoyment is also sacrificed for health, which, in turn, is raised to an end in itself. [...]

      The hysteria of survival makes society so inhumane. Your neighbour is a potential virus carrier, someone to stay away from. Older people have to die alone in their nursing homes because nobody is allowed to visit them because of the risk of infection. [...]

      Religious services are prohibited even at Easter. Priests also practise social distancing and wear protective masks. They totally sacrifice faith for survival. Charity manifests itself as keeping a distance. Virology disempowers theology. [...] The narrative of resurrection completely gives way to the ideology of health and survival. In the face of the virus, belief degenerates into farce."*

 

All of this is spot-on, I think. And it reminds me of something Nietzsche said that I would repeat to any person who truly wishes to be counted amongst the faithful: when faced with hardship - or threatened by a terrible disease - then, first and foremost, believe in the miracles of your god ... 

   

 

* Note: Byung-Chul Han, 'COVID-19 Has Reduced Us to a "Society of Survival"', a conversation with Carmen Sigüenza and Esther Rebollo of EFE, the Spanish International News Agency, in Capitalism and the Death Drive, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2021), pp. 120-21.  

On the Desecration of Altars and the Return of Strange Idols

Image: CNS / Paul Haring 

angelusnews.com

News of the removal and destruction of South American pagan idols from a church in Rome by a group of ultra-conservative Catholic militants obviously caught my attention ...

To be fair, whilst the police are treating this as a theft (and possible hate crime), I think those responsible for throwing the figurines into the River Tiber have a religiously valid case for so doing.

For what might appear to the innocent eye to simply be a wooden statue of a pregnant indigenous woman, is, of course, a representation of Pachamama, the fertility goddess who, in Inca mythology, presides over planting and harvesting and sustains life (even if she also has the power to cause earthquakes).

Placing it alongside other pagan artefacts inside a church just round the corner from St. Peter's is, therefore, a provocative and sacreligious act. There's even a commandment covering the matter and, if I'm not mistaken, members of all three Abrahamic religions, take idolatry or the worship of false gods extremely seriously.

So, whilst I'm not a Catholic, I can sympathise. And, if I were a Catholic, I'd find the presence of an Amazonian Earth Mother squatting in the place where one might reasonably expect to find the Virgin Mary kneeling at prayer, pretty outrageous too. The fact that the Vatican approves of this kind of thing would only serve to infuriate me still further.   

However, as I say, I'm not a Catholic. In fact, as a Nietzschean, my love and loyalty very much lies elsewhere. So the above story made me smile rather than gnash my teeth in rage. It also made me think of a scene in Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent, in which Ramón and the men of Quetzalcoatl remove the holy images from the church at Sayula and replace them with their own neopagan bits and pieces as part of their coup d'état and revaluation of all values.

Ramón has assured the local bishop that this is an act of reverence; as is the destruction of the Christian relics. But the fact that it's carried out by armed soldiers led by the demoniacal little fellow Cipriano with his black inhuman eyes and goatee surely gives us pause for thought ... Even the Nazi book burning was regarded by those responsible as an auto-da-fé and a necessary cleansing of the spirit.   

See: D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clarke, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), Chapters XVII and XVIII. 

Hamartiology: Notes on the Greening of Sin and Carbon Offsetting

Image: Ron Barrett

The New York Times (2007)

I.

Sin - a concept crucial to Christianity - was defined by Augustine as a transgression against God's eternal law, be it by word, deed, or desire.  

Today, however, when everyone is environmentally aware and more concerned about global warming than seeking spiritual salvation, sin seems to involve a transgression against Nature or a defilement of the Earth (sometimes personified as the Greek goddess Gaia).

In other words, we no longer condemn people for missing the moral mark, but eagerly judge individuals, corporations, and governments for failing to hit targets to reduce their carbon emissions or recycle plastic waste ...   

II.

Because no one really wants to be punished for their sins, the Catholic Church came up with the clever idea of an indulgence - which is a kind of get out jail free card that allows for the remission of sins or, at the very least, mitigates the temporal punishment that one might otherwise have expected to receive for wrongdoing.   

By the late Middle Ages, indulgences were hugely popular but abuse of the system was widespread; a problem which the Church recognised, but seemed either unable or unwilling to address. Chaucer famously mocks the idea of holy relics and the unrestricted sale of indulgences in The Pardoner's Tale and, later, Protestant reformers were relentless in their attacks on what they regarded as a sign of worldly corruption. The only thing that indulgences guaranteed, said Luther, was an increase in profit and in sin.  

Finally, in response, the Church did take action: in 1562 the Council of Trent suppressed the office of pardoners and reserved the publication of indulgences to bishops only. Shortly afterwards, Pope Pius V cancelled all issuing of indulgences involving fees or other financial transactions.

But now, however, in this age of green sin, they're back in the form of carbon offsets ...


III. 

A carbon offset is a sleight of hand in which an emission of greenhouse gases made in one place is offset by a reduction in emissions made elsewhere, thereby guaranteeing the blissful state of carbon neutrality.

There are two markets for these carbon offsets: a compliance market, in which large companies and institutions buy them up in bulk in order to comply with international regulations and agreed caps; and, secondly, a much smaller scale voluntary market in which individuals as well as companies purchase carbon offsets so as to mitgate their own greenhouse gas emisssions from things like transport (particularly air travel).  

Carbon offset vendors - i.e., the new pardoners - will happily meet all your needs; even providing other services should you require them, such as measuring your very own carbon footprint.

I'm not the first critic to liken these carbon offsets to indulgences; i.e., a way for the rich and powerful to pay for absolution rather than changing their extravagant lifestyles or harmful business practices. Indeed, several environmental organisations have expressed concern that carbon offsetting is merely a convenient way to virtue signal on the one hand whilst continuing to pollute and consume on the other.   

Think Harry and Meghan, for example, whose sins are bright scarlet, even if they paint themselves as green as green can be ...

When Jayne Went to Ireland

Jayne Mansfield (1967)

Photo by Jane Brown

Just a couple of months before achieving immortality on US Highway 90, the American movie star Jayne Mansfield paid a visit to the town of Tralee in South-West Ireland. It was a visit which, as we shall see, caused much consternation among the clergy who were determined to prevent Miss Mansfield from performing at the Mount Brandon Hotel, thereby safeguarding the moral welfare of the good people of County Kerry ...   

Jayne had been gamely touring the UK on the clubs and pubs circuit and although she wasn't pulling in the crowds as hoped, she nevertheless continued to receive a nightly fee of £3000 - which was an extraordinary sum of money back in 1967. When the Mount Brandon Hotel offered her the chance of earning an extra £1000 for a half-hour set consisting of just six songs, Mansfield and her management team immediately agreed to the gig. News of the one-off show by the notorious blonde bombshell spread like wildfire and the 10/- tickets went like hotcakes. For if Jayne had become something of a joke figure in her homeland, in Ireland she was still a very big deal indeed.  

Unfortunately, news of her impending visit also reached the ears of John Charles McQuaid; the profoundly conservative Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of All Ireland. He immediately determined that the show must not be allowed to go on and that Miss Mansfield should be made aware in no uncertain terms that she was not welcome in the Republic.

Looking back now - and through the eyes of a non-believer - it seems a ridiculous fuss over nothing. One can't help thinking of the classic early episode of Father Ted entitled 'The Passion of Saint Tibulus' (S1/E3). For in much the same way that Bishop Brennan charges Ted with protesting the screening of a supposedly blasphemous film at the Craggy Island cinema, Archbishop McQuaid instructed the 82-year-old Bishop of Kerry, Dennis Moynihan, to ensure that Miss Mansfield did not perform in Tralee.

Although feeling rather put on the spot, the aged priest nevertheless agreed to see what he could do and local churches immediately launched a public campaign calling on all God-fearing men and women of the region to boycott the show by a woman whom they described as a goddess of lust. Rumours, however, that priests marched up and down outside the venue with placards reading down with this sort of thing and careful now are, alas, untrue.       

Whilst most people were indifferent to the whole affair, the campaign against Miss Mansfield attracted huge media attention and made headlines around the world. Subsequently, by the time she flew into Shannon Airport there were large crowds of fans, protesters and journalists waiting for her to step off the plane. As she did so, she waved and blew kisses to the crowd and informed everyone to a loud mix of cheers and boos, that the show would go on.

Unfortunately, however, the show had been booked for a Sunday night (April 23rd) and this afforded the Church the opportunity to attack Miss Mansfield straight after mass that very morning. Priests across Kerry warned their congregations to stay away and ensure the town of Tralee wasn't twinned with Babylon in the minds of the watching world. In an official statement, the show was described as a Satanic attack on decency: "If you worship Christ in the morning, you can't dance with the Devil in the evening."

Sadly, although Jayne was undeterred, the owners of the Mount Brandon Hotel lost their nerve. They initially informed her that the show would have to be cancelled because the support band had got lost en route from Dublin (in fact, the Kerry Blues were a local act who all lived in Tralee). Eventually, however, the owners of the hotel admitted that their cowardly decision to cancel at the last minute was due to clerical pressure and adverse publicity.   

To her immense credit, Jayne simply smiled - as she always smiled - and when interviewed about what had happened refused to blame anyone, insisting that the people of Tralee were sweet and had been very kind to her. Six weeks later, she was dead and the Catholic Church had yet another act of vicious and shameful stupidity on its conscience to one day apologise for, having effectively cast stones at a beautiful woman contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

Notes

To watch a rare and fascinating news segment on Jayne Mansfield's controversial trip to Ireland in April 1967, click here. The footage includes an interview with the glamorous film star. Apologies for the loss of sound in some parts.  

Anyone interested in watching the episode of Father Ted that I refer to, can find it in full on Vimeo: click here. 

It's instructive - and amusing - to compare what happened to Jayne in Ireland with what happened to the Sex Pistols in Wales a decade later; the infamous Caerphilly gig (14 Dec 1976). Click here to view a half-hour documentary about this. 

For other posts on Miss Mansfield, click here and here. 

Vade Retro Satana: On the Priestly Nostalgia for Exorcism

Goya's depiction of an exorcism performed by St Francis Borgia 

on a dying impenitent (1788)

According to the Pope, demonic possession is a real and growing threat in the 21st century. In fact, since assuming his position as head of the Church, Pope Francis has repeatedly displayed a multidisciplinary yet fundamentally anti-modern or neo-medieval approach to the theoretical and practical question of Satan.

It was not a great surprise, therefore, to hear that he last month gave his papal blessing to the International Association of Exorcists; an organization formally recognized by the Vatican which argues - somewhat paradoxically one might have thought - that in a secular-material world of reason that deliberately disenchants and deadens faith, the window is thrown wide open to diabolical forces.

During a convention held in Rome, the Holy Father praised those priests who specialize in the difficult work of exorcising demons and stressed how it was important for the Church to offer its love and full support for those unfortunate souls possessed by evil. 

Over three-hundred experts in the field of what might be called sacramental health care, gathered to discuss, among other things, the perils of occultism and how dabbling in the dark arts can lead to eternal damnation. A spokesman for the association - Dr Walter Cascioli, a trained psychiatrist - blamed the recent dramatic rise in demonic activity on popular books, TV shows, and films aimed at impressionable young people. Such works, he explained, not only lead morally astray, but can cause great psychological damage.

Parents, teachers, and social workers thus need to display much greater vigilance and be constantly on guard against the Devil and all his works. Signs of demonic possession vary, but include: loss of appetite, self-mutilation, unnatural body postures, supernatural strength, knowledge of sacred mysteries, and a violent rejection of Jesus and his Gospel of Love.      

Please note: I am actually writing this at the beginning of November, not April, and in 2014 not 1420. I would fully understand if readers of this post feel the need to check the calender or seek evidence for some kind of shift in the space-time continuum. Why is it whenever one reports on the latest pronouncements of the Church one feels as if one has fallen either through a black hole, or, like Alice, down a rabbit hole?