Christ and His Church First

Father Barron reviews the film The Stoning of Soraya M. here. (Eight minutes well spent.)

What Father Barron so needfully points out in referring to the seminal anthropological insights of René Girard is that scapegoating is how humans nearly always organize ourselves: we come to a "lowest common denominator" of agreeing who to blame, exclude and sometimes kill. As Girard says, "unanimity minus one."

In our Judeo-Christian past, we can see clear evidence of this use of violence. But it is the work of the Holy Spirit in history that has made it more and more difficult to use effectively, as our concern for the victim has increased. Our Lord, in St. John's Gospel, chapter 8, makes it unequivocally clear that only he who has no sin can "cast the first stone."

Compare this with the rise of Sharia law which "The Stoning of Soraya M." is based. Sharia law says God's will is with the ones stoning the certifiable law-breaker. The Christian faith says that God in Jesus Christ is one-with every victim of such "sacred" violence "since the foundation of the world - shown perfectly in His Crucifixion.

Politicians implicitly know the power of what Girard calls "the scapegoat mechanism," because they implicitly understand the power of the crowd (read: the voting public). But, as the Gospel works in history, the power of the scapegoat mechanism is undermined. Even the use of it undermines it all the more, because the very casting out of any new victim recreates the holy Event of the Passion of Our Lord that was its undoing.

Our Last Self-Help President is a master of the crowd. But he himself is still beholden to the power OF the crowd (Girard explains the prestige of the king/shaman in diverting the mob's murderousness onto another victim through the accusatory gesture).

Indeed, the United States in November's elections was heaving another attempt to revivify the scapegoating mechanism. Why? Because this is all we humans know.

The only way to thwart the scapegoating mechanism and all the kingdoms of the world is through the Gospel that Our Lord revealed to us in His Crucifixion and the vindication of His Resurrection.

We carry this faith, hope, and charity with us out into our world when we leave the Sacrifice of the Mass, the one and only place where we join with Our Lord in His grace and by His grace.

All other associations - no matter how noble, patriotic, nationalistic, or tied to a piece of land or history - are doomed to the way of the scapegoat mechanism. There is no "Best of --- " anything, except what Our Lord brings to us in His holy Catholic Church.

But by being good Catholic Christians, we can be fine patriots, citizens, countrymen/women, and friends. The reverse is never, ever the truth.