Thursday, March 26, 2009

Cutting oneself off from the True Vine

I'm not quite certain why, but I am experiencing a new found hope regarding the Catholic faith these days, the kerfuffel at Notre Dame to the contrary notwithstanding.

Perhaps it is best thematized by Bishop Olmsted in a single sentence from his letter to President Jenkins of the University of Notre Dame regarding his invitation to I Won: It is a public act of disobedience to the Bishops of the United States.

Coming from a non-Catholic background myself, I see the long term ramifications of such a disastrous decision on the part of President Jenkins, though, apparently, he does not, being an impatient modern fellow who does not bother his head with Eric Voegelin's warning not to "immanentize the eschaton."

For, firstly, this was and continues to be the heresy par excellence of the Enlightenment project, from the French Revolution through the disasters of the 20th century, and on to the trite mayhem we are experiencing only leading edges of which were heralded in the pagan slogan, "Yes We Can."

But, secondly, Bishop Olmsted is doing more than stating the indicative. He is proclaiming a dread warning to Jenkins: Cut yourself off from the True Vine at your peril. Mainline Protestantism no less than the vast remains of Christendom are withering and becoming dry tinder ripe for the conflagration that Our Lord warns of in John 15.

Even so great an institution as the University of Notre Dame can be so short sighted if so great an institution as the Church in England can also cut herself off from the sole Church leading to the sad, dreadful affair the Anglican communion has become.

I, for one, would hate to see the Golden Dome become a relic of what it once was.

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