THE GLORIES, AND THE TRAGEDIES, OF GOOGLE, or: Why Do Only the Schismatics Seem to Systematize? The internet is a wonderful tool. Thanks to Google, and other like databases (not to mention blogs), I have at my fingertips a vast library of human knowledge. Including of course knowledge of the doctrine and practice of the Church. It is a great blessing from the Lord (though like all gifts we've managed to muck it up in our fashion).
But of course, even the internet is finite. A lot of stuff's just not here. A lot of questions go unanswered. Case in point: this evening I was trying to find the answer to what I'll admit is a somewhat obscure question. If you've made an incomplete confession because at the time you'd forgotten a mortal sin you had committed prior to that confession, would subsequent receptions of communion be sacrilegious? (My interest in this subject being not entirely academic.) So tried the Q&A over at EWTN. And then I googled a couple of different permutations.
I didn't get any definite answers, but I did come across a couple of good web pages with systematic instructions for preparing for confession, both of which included a few choice words on the subject of bad confessions. (You can find them here and here.) At least, I thought they were good web pages. A little digging around quickly corrected that error.
The former page is the product of a Fr. David Trosch, a Catholic priest from Alabama whose archbishop has stripped him of his ability to speak publicly in the name of the Church, presumably because when he did have that faculty he used it to say, in the name of the Church, all kinds of looney things (see below). He's the author of such delightful bon mots as "Catholic Mass of Pope Paul VI offensive to God", "Vatican run by Freemasons and Homosexuals" and (my personal fave) "Pope John Paul II is under sentence of automatic excommunication for failure to remove Cardinal Bernard Law and others who have knowingly given Holy Communion to automatically excommunicated Catholics such as Senator Ted Kennedy". I actually sort of liked his highly systematized approach to the examination of the conscience, but given his other kooky views I'm not sure if I want to make him my e-spiritual director (even though he's technically not a schismatic).
The latter page is maintained by the Society of St. Pius X, a schismatic group that left the Church after the Second Vatican Council under the leadership Marcel Archbishop Lefebvre. Since the SSPXers are genuine schismatics, I'm not looking to them as guides to correct practice of the faith, any more than I'd look to Lutherans or Arians or Gnostics. (Though again the systematic nature of their approach appeals to me.)
I suppose this relates to the subject of a couple of posts (here and here) at Old Oligarch last week: the lost art of theological manuals. We live in an age when there are manuals and "how-to" guides for almost every aspect of life. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be shocked if there were a "For Dummies" book on wiping your own ass. And yet, in the most important things, where doing things right or wrong could make a world of difference, Catholics are given a few years of (often quite shoddy) religious education and then cast from the nest and expected to fly largely on our own. I understand that there are risks involved when one becomes too dependent on manuals; still, for questions like the one that lead me on this mad-cap e-journey to the edge of schism and back again, I can't help but feel that a doctrinal crib sheet would have been a tremendous help. My question is specific, and there's clearly a right answer, and it's important that I know what that answer is (so I can know whether to confess sacrilegious reception as well as the underlying sin): it seems to me there ought to be a place I can go to get a direct answer without having to wake up a priest at 11:00 pm? Isn't that part (albeit a small part) of why God established the Church in the first place?
But of course, even the internet is finite. A lot of stuff's just not here. A lot of questions go unanswered. Case in point: this evening I was trying to find the answer to what I'll admit is a somewhat obscure question. If you've made an incomplete confession because at the time you'd forgotten a mortal sin you had committed prior to that confession, would subsequent receptions of communion be sacrilegious? (My interest in this subject being not entirely academic.) So tried the Q&A over at EWTN. And then I googled a couple of different permutations.
I didn't get any definite answers, but I did come across a couple of good web pages with systematic instructions for preparing for confession, both of which included a few choice words on the subject of bad confessions. (You can find them here and here.) At least, I thought they were good web pages. A little digging around quickly corrected that error.
The former page is the product of a Fr. David Trosch, a Catholic priest from Alabama whose archbishop has stripped him of his ability to speak publicly in the name of the Church, presumably because when he did have that faculty he used it to say, in the name of the Church, all kinds of looney things (see below). He's the author of such delightful bon mots as "Catholic Mass of Pope Paul VI offensive to God", "Vatican run by Freemasons and Homosexuals" and (my personal fave) "Pope John Paul II is under sentence of automatic excommunication for failure to remove Cardinal Bernard Law and others who have knowingly given Holy Communion to automatically excommunicated Catholics such as Senator Ted Kennedy". I actually sort of liked his highly systematized approach to the examination of the conscience, but given his other kooky views I'm not sure if I want to make him my e-spiritual director (even though he's technically not a schismatic).
The latter page is maintained by the Society of St. Pius X, a schismatic group that left the Church after the Second Vatican Council under the leadership Marcel Archbishop Lefebvre. Since the SSPXers are genuine schismatics, I'm not looking to them as guides to correct practice of the faith, any more than I'd look to Lutherans or Arians or Gnostics. (Though again the systematic nature of their approach appeals to me.)
I suppose this relates to the subject of a couple of posts (here and here) at Old Oligarch last week: the lost art of theological manuals. We live in an age when there are manuals and "how-to" guides for almost every aspect of life. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be shocked if there were a "For Dummies" book on wiping your own ass. And yet, in the most important things, where doing things right or wrong could make a world of difference, Catholics are given a few years of (often quite shoddy) religious education and then cast from the nest and expected to fly largely on our own. I understand that there are risks involved when one becomes too dependent on manuals; still, for questions like the one that lead me on this mad-cap e-journey to the edge of schism and back again, I can't help but feel that a doctrinal crib sheet would have been a tremendous help. My question is specific, and there's clearly a right answer, and it's important that I know what that answer is (so I can know whether to confess sacrilegious reception as well as the underlying sin): it seems to me there ought to be a place I can go to get a direct answer without having to wake up a priest at 11:00 pm? Isn't that part (albeit a small part) of why God established the Church in the first place?
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