CNA Staff, Oct 19, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- While there is a tendency to associate the Spanish martyrs of the 20th century solely with the civil war of 1936-39, there were decades of preparation leading to this, accompanied by desecrations of churches, according to a Spanish priest serving in Rome.
The religious persecution in Spain in the 20th century took “some preparation. It is not something that can be narrowed down, it cannot be limited simply to the first months of the Spanish Civil War,” Msgr. José Jaime Brosel Gavilà, rector of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli, the Spanish national church in Rome, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner.
Msgr. Brosel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Valencia and an expert on 20th century Spanish martyrs.
“We have martyrs from 1909, such as Brother Lycarión, a Marist religious who died in the context of the Tragic Week in Barcelona. There was destruction of churches in 1931, there were the canonized martyrs of 1934, and certainly the first months of the Civil War,” he said.
“The second half of the year 1936 is perhaps where there was a greater number of martyrs, but the persecution cannot be limited to the Civil War, but covers all those first decades of the 20th century, and also covers not only Spain, but all of Europe.”
During the Spanish Civil War, Republicans martyred thousands of clerics, religious, and laity; of these, 11 have been canonized, and 1,915 beatified.
While a great number of the martyrs lost their lives during the civil war, there were also other periods, such as the Tragic Week, an uprising of Republicans, socialists, and anarchists in Catalonia in July 1909; the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931; and the Revolution of 1934, a movement of rebellious strikes.
These incidents were also accompanied by the destruction of religious buildings, desecrations, persecution, and the murder of priests, bishops, men and women religious, and lay people out of hatred of the faith.
There is some debate about how to refer to the Spanish martyrs of this historical period. Msgr. Brosel said that appropriate designations are “Spanish martyrs of the 20th century, or the first half of the 20th century, or the first decades of the 20th century.”
In any case, “it wouldn’t be right to identify the martyrs with the Civil War. A war never produces martyrs, it produces victims. Historians like Msgr. Vicente Cárcel, or the Spanish bishops have strongly emphasized this,” the priest noted.
“They’re not martyrs of war, they’re martyrs of persecution, martyrs who died forgiving, and martyrs whose martyrdom was nothing more than the culmination of a life of faith.”
Many of them “could have been beatified for their virtues without any problem even if they hadn’t died a bloody death. But the motivation was hatred of faith, and that hatred of faith is shown by the lack of trials. There were no trials with legal guarantees. Generally, there weren’t any trials, and if there were, they were sham trials. Those who searched for and captured people generally didn’t know anything about the person other than ‘he’s a priest, he’s a religious, the person is a man or a woman of the Church.’ There was no other motivation.”
“We have to understand these martyrs in a context of religious persecution in many countries. There are martyrs of Nazism, there are martyrs of the communist regimes… We cannot simply identify them with a war or with an ideology,” Msgr. Brosel argued, and adding that “Saint John Paul II called the 20th century the great century of martyrs.”
He said the martyrdoms were cruel, “with revenge, with the desecration of corpses. The martyrs were not accused for any political, economic, or social reasons. There was something else to it. There were anti-religious rituals in the destruction of churches.”
For example, he said, “those who destroyed churches, who burned them, wore vestments in mock processions… There was an anti-religious ritual, there was no simple intention of destroying national patrimony, but a complete kind of symbolic language was used, making clear what was intended.”
Another element aspect of this anti-religious ritual is the way people were martyred.
“The persecutor attacked what was considered to be reprehensible, i.e. the mouth. Many martyrs had their tongues cut out because preaching comes through the mouth or because they refused to blaspheme. Or the genital area. Some of martyrs were told: ‘If you agree to consort with prostitutes, we’ll save you.’ And they end up cutting off their genitals.”
In short, “there was no accusation other than hatred of the faith. There were often- repeated false accusations: ‘They have weapons in the convent, there are illegal radio transmitters in the convent, the water has been poisoned, they’re hiding money ….’ In the end, everything was proven to be false. There was no other motivation than hatred of the faith.”
The Spanish Civil War remains controversial in the country. Francisco Franco, leader of the victorious Nationalist forces, was Spain’s head of state from the end of the war until his death in 1975.
In October 2019, Franco’s body was exhumed from the Basilica of the Holy Cross at the Valley of the Fallen, fulling a pledge of the government of Pedro Sanchez, secretary-general of the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party.
Those who sympathize or identify with the Republican side tend to simply focus on the atrocities committed by the Nationalist side, and vice versa.
Msgr. Brosel acknowledged that there were also innocent victims, not martyrs per se, on the Republican side of the conflict and explained that in that sense “when you try to focus attention on those of one side (of the war) at that time, it’s justified by saying ‘perhaps those in the other side have already had enough tributes.’ I believe that what is being considered in some cases is just, i.e. the recovery of bodies, moving toward healing, an encounter. But we can’t always be throwing stones at each other.”
“For the most part, our Spanish martyrs were men and women who had dedicated themselves to teaching the poorest of the poor, giving a free education to the least, the children of workers, creating charitable institutions of charity, supporting the most disadvantaged.”
Msgr. Brosel stressed that “it is unfair to say that (the victims) were from one party or another. A common element among all of them is that they died forgiving. At this time it would be necessary to condemn all deaths because no death is justifiable, not to hide any, and even less, to hide the death of innocent people like the martyrs.”
Regarding the total number of martyrs in Spain during the 20th century, “there is no reliable data. Sometimes hundreds of thousands were mentioned, but there is no reliable data.” The number of those beatified for hatred of the faith is in the hundreds, and “the open processes of hundreds of martyrs continue.”
“I believe that it will never be possible to establish the total figure, and I believe that it will be increasingly difficult because there are no longer many eyewitnesses who knew, not only of the physical death, but also the motivation of the persecutor, or how the person lived his faith: how those who died accepted it from faith. Today we hardly have any witnesses and the documents demonstrating martyrdom are few.”
Among the martyr’s testimonies that particularly impacted him, Msgr. Brosel cited the “witness of Teresa Ferragut, an older woman who had four daughters who were nuns. She asked to die last because in that way she could encourage her daughters, like the mother of the Maccabees, not to falter, to remain faithful until the end.”
The expert said he was also moved by the “mothers of young priests. They’re not martyrs, the priests are, but the mother encouraged them: ‘Stay faithful to the end, my son. Faithful to the end.’”
“It is a beautiful puzzle that the Spanish martyrs offer us. With many common elements, a great deal of them, and the main one is a witness of faith and an invitation to forgiveness and reconciliation. And not just the martyrs, the families of the martyrs. It’s rare to find a family who would later file a complaint.”
“What we found are families of martyrs who asked their own children to forgive, to be reconciled. I wouldn’t say to forget, I believe that forgetting isn’t good, because what is forgotten we’re condemned to repeat, but asking that the blood of those relatives who had been martyred serve to build a new country, a different country, and not sometimes a country that gives us the impression that it wants to build by throwing stones, by confrontation, accusations, but from justice, of course, but from forgiveness and looking forward,” he concluded.
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Thomas Sternberg Card Reinhard Marx preen together happily. For former ZdK pres Sternberg the current pontificate removed his doubts that the Synodaler Weg [Synodal Way] would be able to achieve its mischievous end of altering Apostolic doctrine.
Finally, Sternberg, a notable witness to the Kabuki theatre of papal warnings, German bishops’ protests – that the Synod on Synodality benefits from the charade. Appointment by His Holiness Card Hollerich SJ as Synod on Synodality relator should have awakened us. Some got the message. Sex dominates the fallen intellect of Man the Germans [the fallen not the few remaining faithful] no different. Women priests, homosexuality top of the Synodaler Weg agenda. Where does it originate, if not at least encouraged if not with former Archbishop Milan Card Mario Maria Martini SJ who invented the perennial open forum synod idea to update Christianity to the world? His devotee then Card Jorge Bergoglio Buenos Aires assumed the task Martini overjoyed when Jorge became Francis I.
Why sexuality topping the agenda? Why the obsession? Because it’s about the transmission of life created in God’s image. Family, one man, one woman and children are central to love of that image. Corruption of the intellect occurs when we deem our thoughts superior to those laid down [in the soul by God] in natural law and revelation. Assume, then, history reveals this as scientific truth when behavior deviates from its natural predilection. Ironically, the greater the perverse deviation in sexual behavior the greater to the corrupt mind the scientific evidence that ‘God made you that way’.
Why then do we judge? Who are we to judge anyone who tries in best of his ability to do the will of God? Just add to the travesty someone who does their best to do the will of God and the rest falls into place. Acceptance of the unnatural as nature’s way, God’s benevolent appraisal. That is to consign Christ’s revelation to an outdated historical event. That is to become an apostate.
Germania’s “synodal path” is “designed?”
A camel is a horse designed by a committee. And, like the trendy German thingy, today’s trendy and high-priced designer-jeans are also full of holes.
Making demands, applying pressure using political tools and tactics… I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding these synodal processes. Invoking Him is just rhetorical cover for progressive power politics. I call that scandalous.
As a postscript to my Dec 2 comment there really is no hard evidence of collusion between the Vatican sponsored Synod on Synodality and the German Synodaler Weg. There is however alluded to in my comment what appears to be a consistency in direction of both the German and the universal Vatican Synod.
Whether or not ZdK Chairman Sternberg is correct regarding the Synodaler Weg’s immunity to canon law is irrelevant to the Pontiff’s supreme authority and ability to intervene with dramatic consequences for apostate bishops. There’s a difference between alleged discussion and actually proposing heresy as have the German prelates Card Reinhard Marx and Bishop Georg Bätzing.
At point of issue is the hesitancy of Pope Francis not to effectively intervene. A rationale may be found in Prof Eduardo Echeverria’s recent commentary Signs of Contradiction in TCT, in which Echeverria muses over Francis’ interview with America Mag that “A Catholic cannot think either or and reduce everything to polarization. It’s about both and or, and combining differences.”
We may study both sides of interpretation as does Echeverria, on the positive for example faith and reason, although on the negative what is doctrinal and absolute and what is increasingly accepted by His Holiness as pastoral and not in sync with doctrine. This is apparent in the similarity of themes in both synods the German and the Vatican.
Harmony has difference in application. If we refer to accord between Blacks and Whites then it’s racial harmony. If we reference doctrine, it’s not simply theoretical, rather as manifest in practice, since ethics refer to what we do not simply ideas. Now if as Card Hollerich suggests the Church must reconsider homosexual relations, that is actions in context of harmony, the normalizing of those behaviors reduces harmony to difference in behaviors rather than doctrine. As similar to racial harmony. As such, we can no longer speak of doctrinal harmony between different sexual behaviors.
Normalization between two diverse behaviors becomes equivalence. Doctrinal harmony is effectively made irrelevant. We are either a religious body adhering to moral principles or we are not.
Of harmonious blending, such splitting the difference is an expedient mind game of self-deception…
The smiley-button lunatic who jumps from the tenth floor, as he passes the fifth floor, hollers (as in Hollerich): “so far, so good!” And, farther down, he can always divide in half the remaining distance to solid ground, such that there is always a minuscule margin of never actually touching the pavement. No “polarization!”
But, the fact is that he makes a very pastoral and absolute mess on the sidewalk. The sidewalk, that real place where the unreal synodal lemmings are “walking together” and who, likewise, never arrive at any weighty conclusions about the gravity of their situation.
Said another prophet of false “harmony” as opposed to “either/or”, with one hand in ice water and the other on the stove: “on average I feel pretty good.”
Vatican II paved the way for all this kind of shenanigans. “By their fruit, you shall know them.”
I’m sorry George, but I just don’t buy your assertion. The smoke of Satan entered into the Church through a crack. The crack was the wdespread Episcopal rejection of Humanae Vitae — not Vatican II. The “shananigans” are the consequence of that smoke, but not the crack through which it entered. Here is my support for these statements: https://www.stossbooks.com/open-letter-to-german-episcopate.html#Smoke_of_Satan
How the Descendants of Ephraim, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.”, hijack the Catholic Church.
The evil German Bishops are a huge part of The Book of Revelation’s ‘Harlot of Babylon’. Here is why Babylon, which fell 60 years after the exile of the House of Judah, is actually destroyed upon the Second Coming of Jesus. God labels the Descendants of Israel as ‘The Harlot of Babylon’, upon their exile from the Promised Land. The ‘beast’ the Harlot of Babylon rides represents world dominant power.
Revelation 17:3
Then he carried me away in spirit to a deserted place where I saw a woman seated on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names, with seven heads and ten horns. The woman was wearing purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held in her hand a gold cup that was filled with the abominable and sordid deeds of her harlotry. On her forehead was written a name, which is a mystery, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her I was greatly amazed.
When Pope Benedict XVI abdicated the papacy, the Cardinals ‘wanted’ to find our next Pope from the Continent of Africa. I was elated! After having the Descendants of Ephraim dominate the Chair of St. Peter for 1300 years, as well as dominate the college of Pope voting Cardinals, it was at last time for a non-Descendant of Ephraim to lead our Church! I thought! Turned out that the Descendants of Ephraim, pope voting Cardinals, could not find anyone on the continent of Africa, ‘with the right qualifications’. The next thing I heard was that the Descendants of Ephraim pope voting Cardinals had found our next pope in South America. Well that works! When I first saw Pope Francis, I exclaimed, ‘He sure looks like a Descendant of Ephraim to me!’ Pope Francis is a Descendant of Ephraim, of Italian descent.
Because Abraham was faithful to God, God Blessed Abraham’s descendants above other descendants. The ‘Blessing of Abraham’ (Genesis 22:16-18) is: Will have Myriads of descendants (Joshua 17:14); Will have great wealth (Deuteronomy 33:13); Will have world dominant Power (Genesis 17:15); Will grow to become a multitude of nations (Genesis 48:17).
Jacob/Israel bypassed his twelve sons, and placed the Blessing of Abraham on his beloved wife Racheal’s grandson Ephraim. In this way Jacob bypassed his other three wives, Leah (Judah’s mother), Bilhah, and Zilpah’s, descendants of Israel. It is through Jacob’s beloved wife Racheal, through whom all the myriads of descendants from the Blessing of Abraham flow. Jacob Israel’s true love Racheal led a life of painful childlessness, due to the attempted murder of her son Joseph, by Joseph’s brothers from other mothers. Posthumously, Jacob romantically made his true love Racheal to be the mother of all the, Blessing of Abraham myriads of children, who grow to become a multitude of nations.
Europe originally had indigenous black people. It is the Descendants of Ephraim, exiled from the Promised Land due to their massive sinfulness, who immigrate into Europe to become a multitude of nations, which makes Europe a multitude of white nations, bearing world dominant power.
BBC: Cheddar Man: DNA shows early Briton had dark skin.
A University College London team analyzed the genome, and the results were used for a facial reconstruction. It underlines the fact that the lighter skin characteristic of modern Europeans is a relatively recent phenomenon. No prehistoric Briton of this age had previously had their genome analyzed.
quoted from: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42939192
Due to their massive unrepentant sinfulness, Ephraim’s descendants, presently ruling the world, due to their possession of the Blessing of Abraham, are set to be decimated, by God, in the near future Apocalypse. Jesus’ locutions to St. Faustina in the 1930s, indicate this event will be upon us very soon! Please receive Jesus’ Gifts of Divine Mercy, this coming Divine Mercy Sunday.
Penance! Penance! Penance! Fellow Descendants of Ephraim.
Matthew 8:11
Mark what I say! Many will come from the east and the west and will find a place at the banquet in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the natural heirs of the kingdom will be driven out into the dark, Wailing will be heard there, and the grinding of teeth.
Hosea 5:9
Ephraim shall become a waste on the day of chastisement: Against the tribes of Israel I announce what is sure to be.
Isaiah 10:20
The Light of Israel will become a fire, the Holy One, a flame, That burns and consumes its briers and its thorns in a single day. And the glory of its forests and orchards will be consumed, soul and body, and it will be like a sick man who wastes away. And the remnant of the trees in his forest will be so few, that any child can record them.
On that day The remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon the one who struck them; But they will lean upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. Though your people, O Israel, were like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant of them will return; their destruction is decreed, as overflowing justice demands. For the Lord, the GOD of hosts, is about to carry out the destruction decreed in the midst of the whole land.
Isaiah 17:14
The fortress shall vanish from Ephraim and dominion from Damascus; The remnant of Aram shall become like the glory of the Israelites- oracle of the LORD of hosts. On that day The glory of Jacob shall fade, and his full body shall grow thin. Like the reaper’s mere armful of stalks, when he gathers the standing grain; Or as when one gleans the ears in the Valley of Rephaim. Only gleanings shall be left in it, as when an olive tree has been beaten-Two or three olives at the very top, four or five on its most fruitful branches-oracle of the LORD, the God of Israel. On that day people shall turn to their maker, their eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
Hosea 6:10
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing:
there harlotry is found in Ephraim,
Israel is defiled. For you also, O Judah,
a harvest has been appointed.
Revelation 18:21
A mighty angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone and threw it into the sea and said: “With such force will Babylon the great city be thrown down, and will never be found again.
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html
I love the mystic side of the Church, the daily work of the Church and the times the Church has fought actively and decisively against the enemies of God and humanity. Every enemy of God will directly be a dangerous enemy of humanity. Even admitting the errors and sins that human Catholics will undoubtedly committ, I am never ashamed of the Crusades or Lepanto because they did what they had to do against an anti-Real-God enemy and many lost their one and only life doing so.
We must do, as Jesus commanded, lose our lives to keep our lives, walking away from the cowardice of so many Clergy today and into the battle against PRESSURE, as they admitted, of the German sinful mob, Francis the pretend Pope, and all their associates in parishes everywhere.
We grow holier and stronger in facing against this diabolical pressure and must transform our fear into humble invincible courage through prayer. We must defeat at the same time our internal enemies: naivete, hyper-feminization (lethal to both men and women), false respect, false charity, false forgiveness, false heart-centeredness and false hybrid New Age Catholicism. Trying to be “nice” is Satan’s gospel to make us voluntarily consent to evil and therefore give it the Catholic spiritual power that God is giving us. Time to stop trying to make the Devil Catholic and feeding and empowering him with the grace that we are being given from God. The Devil’s triumphs are being fed by us. Starve him!
Below is a quote from an article I wrote:
To accomplish his 100-120 plan to destroy the Church, Satan follows a plan of attack revealed in Revelation 2:12-17. He plans to de-moral-ize, and thus weaken, the Church. His plan specifically points to virtues and vices — specifically vices tied to the lusts of the flesh. It is Satan’s desire to weaken the members of Church Militant by destroying their moral underpinnings; the very thing that makes us strong. This approach is actually explained in Revelation.
St. Hildegard of Bingen (a Doctor of the Church) is informed by God thus:
“And falling thus from disobedience into death, when they [Adam and Eve] knew they could sin [thanks to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—SML], they discovered sin’s sweetness. And in this way, turning My rightful institution into sinful lust, although they should have known that the commotion in their veins [i.e., hormones] was not for the sweetness of sin but for the love of children, by the Devil’s suggestion they changed it to lechery; and, losing the innocence of the act of begetting, they yielded it to sin. This was not accomplished without the Devil’s persuasion; for that purpose he sent forth his darts, and it did not come to pass without his suggestion; as he said, **‘My [Devil’s] strength is in human conception, and therefore humanity is mine’!** [St. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990), 80-81]”
In Rev. 2:12-17, we read about the church at Pergamum. The people of this church are told, “To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.” So, what was it that the Spirit wanted this particular church to conquer? The sin of the church at Pergamum was fornication and/or adultery, both of the flesh and of the spirit (idolatry); both are rampant in the twentieth century. Interestingly, none of the other churches were promised a white stone should they succeed in conquering their particular brand of sinfulness.
We know this because of the reference to the “teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak” (Rev 2:14). What was it Balaam taught Balak? Balaam knew that the Churches strength came from God. Balaam knew that without God, they would become weak and vulnerable. In order to make God angry at the Israelites, Balaam taught Balak to place stumbling blocks before them. To put that teaching into action, Balak employed some of the most beautiful women in his kingdom to lure the men into unclean fleshly and spiritual acts, i.e., sexual intercourse and idolatry [Ken Ham, “Millions of Years and the ‘Doctrine of Balaam,’” Answers in Genesis, : June 1, 1997].
The stumbling blocks were the DNA/salt/dust/stone bodies of beautiful and desirous women. Accomplishing his goal to destroy the domestic Church required getting rid of the openness to life in the sex act, thus destroying the likeness of the Trinity in the family. The German’s, with their Synodal Way, have joined forces with Satan. They have fully breathed in the smoke of Satan; The smoke which entered the Church when it failed to support and teach the doctrines contained in Humanae Vitae.
The sexual stuff they are pushing is disgusting and flies in the face of 2000 years of Church lore. If the Germans continue down this path, they will find themselves in schism. It will result in their having only a handful of believers, whose probable monetary resources will not be enough to keep these Bishops in the style to which they have become accustomed. I assume things like physical churches and rectories are the property of the OFFICIAL Roman Catholic Church , of which they will no longer be a part.I believe things will go sideways financially for these schismatic Germans rather rapidly, unless they have a George Soros deep pockets type hidden among their supporters. If Francis lacks the gumption to stop these people, the reality is that at some point he will pass the baton to another Pope. Hopefully that one will choose to remain true to the church of Christ.Excommunication for this bunch and their supporters should be the penalty.
Pornography is also the incipient corrupting of society, it’s the very direction in which it is going. In both faith and reason the idea it is not pornographic is already poison.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/12/01/exorcist-says-porn-addiction-an-opening-to-the-demonic-despite-german-priests-controversial-denials/
I am not surprised. But this rot isn’t confined to Germany. The fact that it is tolerated shows that the issues are much higher up, and likely much more widespread.
Ungodly men in positions of power show themselves to be limbs of Satan in due course. They have been rebuked and warned repeatedly and now they need to be replaced and put out of the church.
1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
Matthew 18:15-20 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. …
Titus 3:9-11 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Action must come from Papa. Pray for him!
Pope Francis: ““A Catholic cannot think either or and reduce everything [?] to polarization. It’s about both and or, and combining differences.” What, still, about those special and irreducible cases like, say, Genesis 2: to not eat from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? A binary “polarization”? (And, we can also take note of another endangered binary of man and woman.)
Yours truly is fascinated by the eclipsing of binaries/contradictions under what sometimes is too much a flaccid ideology of “combining differences.” The universal solvent! The same suspension of elementary logic was noted by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) in his encounter with the early 20th-century Bedouin tribes. Here’s Lawrence: “…Sometimes inconsistencies seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised: they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions [!] to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity [!]” (“Seven Pillars of Wisdom”).
What is the difference, then, between the principle of “incongruity” and abrogation embedded in Islam and the ecclesial “paradigm shift” now being graffitied onto the Church?
It’s almost as if the 7th-century Bedouin tribes discovered the “paradigm shift” long before our postmodern, 21st-century tribe of clericalist, cut-and-paste mimics of Thomas Kuhn (“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” 1962). Strange bedfellows, too, with the natural religion of Islam (and Pachamama)—the combining of differences?
Insightful. Thank you.