Despite my sometimes exaggerated presentation of Cardinal Manning, Cardinal Manning would not deny tradition. What he did however deny is historical studies as possessing any intrinsic meaning or ability to discern the past. [...] It would be useful to cite him in full here: It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine. How can we know what antiquity was except through the Church? No individual, no number of individuals can go back through eighteen hundred years to reach the doctrines of antiquity… -The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost Read the last two lines over and over again. “How can we know what antiquity was except through the Church?” “No number of individuals can go back through eighteen hundred years to reach the doctrines of antiquity”. Just as how the Jansenist first appealed to semantics, and then later to miracles, to defy the Church, now the Protestant historians are using history to defy the Church. And the Roman Church’s response is once more quite predictable. They will attempt to monopolise history itself. First, in a strange postmodern twist, Cardinal Manning denies us any ability to know what the past taught. Then he claims that the Roman Church alone can discern the past. In the light of the Roman Church’s earlier history, such a move becomes intelligible. The progressive monopolisation of the Church of all nature was set in motion a very long time ago, even before the “modernism” of the 19th century. Yet what becomes clear is that in their bid to attempt to control the meaning of everything, they must sound a strange postmodern note. We can’t know what human texts mean without the Pope. We can’t know the meaning of miracles without the Pope. And now we can’t even study history without the Pope. This is simply a recipe for disaster, the inevitable path down to total postmodern nihilism. Conclusion: Postmodern Nihilism and the Roman Church The attempt to monopolise the meaning of everything by the Roman Church ironically bears out Derrida’s idea of “Différance” where the meaning of words are infinitely “differed” or deflected away from their originals. The Scriptures do not intrinsically possess their meaning, their meaning is “differed” to the judgements of the Magisterium. The meaning of Augustinius itself is “deflected” to the Church. Miracles itself are not intrinsically meaningful, their meaning is deflected to the Church. And finally, history itself is unintelligible intrinsically; their meaning is deflected to the Church too. The crowning moment of the Roman Church’s attempt to control all of nature comes with Humanae Vitae. Finally, the Roman Church claims to be the only reliable and infallible interpreter of natural law. The Roman Church is finally the (virtual!) master of all nature itself. The end result of course is total nihilism. Nothing intrinsically possesses its meaning. Everything is subjected to a positivistic legal mechanism. From the halls of the Vatican alone is all truth continuously sustained and renewed. Outside is nothing but a wasteland of error, ambiguity and confusion. After citing various texts from their own Church disproving their point, they would argue that my interpretation of those very ecclesiastical texts are wrong. Thus, we now need an interpretation of the interpretation, and on and on, etc. The meaning is infinitely deferred. If there is anyone who is truly guilty of modernism (if there be such a thing), it would undoubtedly be the Roman Church alone. ********************* I would like to thank Art for providing some of the materials for this blog post.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 03:05:01 +0000
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