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The Catholic crisis over “us”

The question, “Who are we as human beings?”, is most sharply posed by gender ideology and the transgender insurgency.

Detail from Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" (c. 1490; Wikipedia)

Cambridge historian Richard Rex has provocatively proposed that Catholicism today is embroiled in the third great crisis of its bimillennial history.

The first crisis was the fierce, Church-dividing debate over “What is God?” That question was definitively answered by the First Council of Nicaea I (325 A.D.) and the Council of Chalcedon (451). Nicaea I affirmed that Jesus is truly God, the second Person of the Trinity; Chalcedon affirmed that, through the incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, divinity and humanity are united in the one person of Jesus Christ. Thus Nicaea I and Chalcedon established the trinitarian and incarnational foundations of Christian orthodoxy for all time.

The second crisis, which led to the fracture of western Christendom in the various 16th century Protestant Reformations, revolved around the question, “What is the Church?” The Council of Trent gave the orthodox response to that question, in answers refined over time by Pope Pius XII’s teaching on the Church as the “Mystical Body of Christ,” by the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, and by the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, which synthesized Vatican II’s teaching by describing the Church as a communion of disciples in mission.

And the third crisis, through which we’re living?

That, Professor Rex argued, involves “…a question that once would have been expressed as ‘What is man?’ The fact that this wording is itself seen as problematic is a symptom of the very condition it seeks to diagnose. What is it, in other words, to be human?” That, Rex rightly contends, is what’s at issue in “an entire alphabet of beliefs and practices: abortion, bisexuality, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, family, gender, homosexuality, infertility treatment….” And so forth and so on, across the cratered battlefields of a culture war that, beginning outside the Church, is now being fought within the household of faith.

So: first, a “theological” crisis, in the literal meaning of theology: “speaking about God.” Then an ecclesiological crisis. And now an anthropological crisis. The previous two crises were Church-dividing. The third could well be, as demonstrated by the German apostasy that is threatening to fracture the unity of the Catholic Church, and by the abandonment of Catholicism’s biblically-grounded understanding of the human person by prominent bishops, theologians and activists.

The question, “Who are we as human beings?”, is most sharply posed by gender ideology and the transgender insurgency. This has now reached the point of absurdity wherein “a drag queen on the Isle of Man” (as Mary Wakefield reported last month in the Spectator) “…informed Year 7 pupils that there are exactly 73 genders. When one brave child insisted that there were only two, the drag queen allegedly responded, ‘You’ve upset me,’ and sent the child out.”

But there is something even worse than this abandonment of any pretense to educational seriousness. And that is the abandonment of any pretense to medical professionalism by American doctors who, influenced more by gender ideology than “the science,” and affirmed in their irresponsibility by the American Academy of Pediatrics, prescribe puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones to children suffering from the serious mental health problem of gender dysphoria.

This therapeutic cave-in to wokery in the U.S. has now been challenged by the editors of the venerable British newsmagazine, the Economist (firmly center-left in its politics), whose editors note that “the medical systems of Britain, Finland, France, Norway, and Sweden” have “all…raised the alarm, describing [these] treatments as ‘experimental’ and urging doctors to proceed with ‘great medical caution.’”

Then there is Cole Aronson, an Orthodox Jew and keen student of philosophy, who published a devastating ethical critique of “sex-reassignment” surgeries on the website Public Discourse. Aronson concluded by observing that it’s not only those on the left who must reconsider gender ideology and transgenderism: “Conservatives need to choose between their impulse to let people live as they damn well please and their opposition to the grisly stuff being done by scientists and surgeons.”

The voice of the Church is too often muted here, precisely because the Church is ensnared in a crisis over “us:” a crisis over the nature and destiny of the human. The Gospel demands pastoral charity toward those suffering from gender dysphoria and experiencing same-sex attraction. That charity, however, must include truth-telling about who we are, which we learn from divine revelation and human reason. And what we learn from those sources is that gender ideology is as false a god, and as destructive of body and soul, as Baal and Moloch.

Who will say this at the next papal conclave and at Synod-2023?


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About George Weigel 511 Articles
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (Ignatius, 2021), and To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books, 2022).

19 Comments

  1. Answer to the question of what it is to be human is simple. It is just “difficult” for some, because it is at the moment unpopular with a vocal minority. Much of human morality is, in fact, straightforward, but it is also demanding and can cause us to make a choice we find hard or painful. That is what has made Christianity not “tried and found wanting, but found difficult and left untried.”

  2. Weigel’s analysis here, as usual, is spot-on. Furthermore, the anthropological crisis we are enmeshed in only underscores the ongoing significance of the papacy of John Paul II, whose first encyclical, “Redemptor Hominis” was a theological elaboration of a Christocentric theological anthropology. It was no mere coincidence that this was his first encyclical. Long before he was pope, he was active at the Council, and cooperated with theologians like Henri de Lubac whose own book, “The Drama of Atheist Humanism”, was a masterpiece of Christian theological anthropology, which he proposed as the antidote to the false anthropologies of modernity. And whatever one thinks of the Council, there is no doubt that one of its primary guiding principles was precisely this kind of christocentric theological anthropology.

    The theological dissenters after the Council all ignored this anthropology in favor of the atomized individualism and horizontalist naturalism. of modern Liberal secularity. This then is the key, as Weigel correctly notes here with insight and precision, to understanding the current crisis in the Church. It is an anthropological crisis.

  3. Yes. Gender ideology, the stultifying inability of asking What is man? is a major issue. Although not what historian Richard Rex asserts is the third crisis within the Church. The actual crisis surpasses those named by Rex because it questions what the Church is, what the Church conveys to the world.
    An example is the Church, at this first time in its history is questioning its very basis of existence. The revelation of Christ and his institution of the Church. A new paradigm conveyed by the current assignee to the Chair of Peter. Never has all moral doctrine in consequence theological doctrine been in process of revision. Liceity of that revision is the crisis. Indeed there is more than one false god than gender ideology, there’s the unlimited purview of the golden calf unprincipled liberty to contend with.

  4. In my Masters program at St. Thomas Aquinas in Houston, we studied the nature of man by a thorough-going analysis of the Angels (above us) and the Brutes (beneath us). We did both analyses via negativa; inductively and deductively. I wish this kind of schooling would be mandatory in High School. The Paideia Proposal of Mortimer Adler, published in 1982 would be a fine place to start. It lays the groundwork for further development and one could very successfully argue it makes no “infringement” of the State by introducing theological doctrine. It’s basic thrust relies on delivering Aristotelian principles, rooted in “REALISM”, offering exposure to critical distinctions like “ideal” and “real”; “substance” and “accident”. I fear any further down this road we will end up suffering a fate much worse than what C.S. Lewis described as Men without Chests; we’ll arrive at a place of Men without Intellect.

    • Should you visit universities around the country, and probably in Europe as well,
      you you’ll see plenty of Men (and women) with plenty of intellect. Too much intellect, in fact. And there’s the rub. Where do you think all these absurdities come from? People who believe THEY are the ones who will save the world; the smart ones. The elite. The ‘boys’ busily machinating destruction at Davos. We already have “Men without Chests.” Worse yet, men and women without souls. Without conscience. You can’t be the billionaire with a conscience or soul. You certainly cant murder your unborn child (or your Grandmother) if you
      have a conscience or a soul. It’s the intellectuals who’ve made it “reasonable”
      to do these things. Just try to defy, or even speak against them and you’ll no
      longer wish for the self-proclaimed “Great Minds.”

  5. George is getting a bit more bold, but seems still unwilling to publicly and directly lay the blame for the current situation in the Church squarely at the feet of PF. The time for playing the game of “respecting the office” by limiting oneself to merely oblique criticisms of PF has passed. What is warranted now are blunt and forthright denunciations of PF for supporting and promoting heretics and heresy.

    • Yes, not only at the feet of PF, but all the cardinals & bishops who are advising him & the silence from the majority if hierarchy not speaking boldly against the heresy being hinted at or clearly spoken! ALso, PF is “stacking the deck” in the college & bishop appointments to solidify these confusing schismatical heretical teachings.
      Please respective writers like GW, say it like it is!🙏🙏🙏

      • I assume you already pray for the children in your city or town. Adopt a public or parochial school, or both. Make sure the schools have a policy of having single sex bathrooms and locker rooms. If they don’t, be a thorn in their side. You can check library materials at most schools online. For example, my kid’s school has a copy of a book that instruct kids on how to use sex apps. If those books are there, raise a stink and find out how to challenge them. Advocate for school choice.

        At parochial schools, ask how the priests are being background checked, and advocate that the school starts running their own checks by calling at least the last five parishes that any priest served at. Volunteer at the school to help teach the kids their prayers or how to read.

        Pray especially for the children being misled by gender ideology and their parents.

  6. According to Jesus, through Catholic mystic Luisa Piccarreta who lived in the ‘Divine Will’ with the Holy Trinity, the three ‘Fiats’ of God’s Church are, Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification. Adam, Eve, Jesus, Mary, Luisa, and the way it looks, St. Faustina, all lived in the ‘Divine Will’ of God.

    Jesus’ love is anxious to bring His whole Church back into the Divine Will, to repair Creation to its pre-fall of man original state, as God Wills it to be. Each Fiat of God is a ‘crisis over us’; First, the fall of man, Second, Jesus’ death on the cross and Church persecution, and Third, our present impending Sanctification of mankind, which allows Christ’s Church back into living in God’s Divine Will on free-willed earth. Once God’s Third Fiat of Sanctification is accomplished on earth, we will live in ‘Thy Kingdom Come Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven’.

    ‘Luisa Piccarretta and the Divine Will- Teachings of Jesus” by Susanne James, published 2020. Wow! What a book! Quotes below.

    “Jesus told Luisa,
    “My daughter its is true: in my Will resides the Creative Power. From within a single FIAT billions of stars emerged. From the Fiat mihi of my Mother, from which my Redemption originated, emerged billions and billions of acts of Grace which are communicated to souls.” (1921)

    “Jesus explains how he wishes to release the third Fiat – The Decree of Sanctification:
    “My child, the first Fiat was uttered in Creation, without the participation of any person. I chose my Mother for the accomplishment of the Second Fiat. This Fiat will complete the glory and the honour of the Fiat of Creation, and it represents the full fruition of the Fiat of Redemption. (1921)”

    The Third Fiat, the Decree of Sanctification was to commence with the YES, the Fiat of Lusia. She was the first person to be invited to live in the Divine Will. This was a momentous occasion in history. Lusia said Yes, and this was the Fiat – Let it be done! (Like Mary’s Let it be done to me)

    “We cannot say that we have finished the work of Creation, if our Will as it was decreed by us, does not act in people and exist with the same freedom, holiness, and power that exists in us. Moreover, this is the most beautiful, brightest and supreme movement. It is the seal of fulfillment of the work of Creation and Redemption. These are Divine Decrees and must have their complete fulfillment.
    And in order to accomplish this Decree, we want to utilize another woman, who is you..”(1923)

    “Now the Lord’s Prayer was heading for fulfillment: God’s Will done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

    “Jesus explained.
    These three Fiats will reflect the Sacrosanct Trinity on earth, and then I will have the Fiat voluntas tua (Thy Will be done) on earth as it is in Heaven.
    These three Fiats will be inseparable. One shall be the life of the other, they shall be One and Three, yet different from each other. My Love so desires it, and my glory demands it. Having sent forth from the bosom of my Creative Power the first two Fiats, I wish to emit the Third Fiat, since I cannot contain my Love any longer.
    This will complete the work that poured forth from Me. Otherwise the work of Creation as well as Redemption would remain incomplete”

    “Jesus told Luisa: “That is why I want to purify the earth, because as it is now – the earth is unworthy of such a wonder of sanctity.”
    (end quotes from Susanne James book)

    Thank you, my new dear friend, lay Carmelite Betty, for gifting me (this past Holy Thursday) with this book about God’s Three Fiats. I advise everyone to read it!

    Matthew 13:36
    The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned (up) with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

    Divine Mercy in My Soul, 955
    Today I heard these words in my soul: Host pleasing to My Father, know, My daughter, that the entire Holy Trinity finds Its special delight in you, because you live exclusively by the will of God. No sacrifice can compare with this.

    Divine Mercy in My Soul, 923
    I delight in you as in a living host; let nothing terrify you; I am with you.

    Jesus is Getting Married!
    http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html

  7. As a second perspective on the current “anthropological crisis,” we have the heresy of “convergence” among the world religions (including Secularism)…

    …the “pluralism” thingy (the Abu Dhabi Declaration, 2019). And what better way to converge with the spreading and assimilative natural religion of Islam than to follow its lead (already from the 7th century!)? That is, to still reference the Law of Moses, but to eclipse any explicit reference to the prohibitive last five Commandments.

    The resulting vacuum invites all of the modernday moral violations against things human, as listed by Rex and noted by Weigel. So, about today’s anthropological crisis, this from Vatican II on “the nature and destiny of the human”:

    “Christ the Lord…by the revelation of the mystery of the Father [!] and His love [!], fully REVEALS MAN TO HIMSELF and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22, caps added).

    Butt, as part of resurgent and naturalist paganism, also Christo-Islamism?

  8. Few human beings in every generation have been brave enough to seek and proclaim the truth, especially when the truth is under fierce assault. This is very hard. In a word, this is the cross.

  9. What is man? This question needs to be answered definitively in a new way given this anthropological emergency pointed out by Weigel. Transgender ideology is just a symptom among many others in this crisis. Various other answers to this question are in the marketplace of ideologies or theologies. We have for example views from secular, atheistic, new age, and transcendental philosophy. I hope a Vatican III (or Manila I, or Lagos I, or Mexico City I) be convoked by a Pope Francis II sometime this century to study, reflect and teach on the answer to this question. We the Church already have the Christocentric understanding of man most especially in Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes 22. I think we need to move into a more Pneumacentric anthropology which was left undeveloped by the Council. This can also be better connected to and highlight man’s ultimate vocation into Deification or Divinization (terms and concept we Catholics are mostly still ignorant or uncomfortable with) already taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church especially 1 and 460.

  10. Superb analysis by George Weigel, and by the quoted author. This tripartite division of what could be called Christian apologetic history seems accurate. There is no doubt that we are now in the “great anthropological crisis”, which Karol Wojtyla was addressing 50 years ago. Perhaps this will mean, in the end, that just as great champions of the faith rose up earlier, in defense of God and Church (Athanasius and Carlos Borromeo, for example), new champions are forthcoming.

  11. I tried to find what I believe is the correct response, but it wasn’t in the article nor in any response. The first thing man is, is not God. My goodness, this entire nonsense started in the Garden. Man’s entire existence has been spent trying to show he is God’s equal, and continually eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil has proven it.
    The church is participating in it as well. Start with, “Why don’t we need God”?

4 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

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  4. Вайґель: третя велика криза Церкви стосується питання «Хто така людина?»

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