Evening Note for Tuesday, March 7

Thought for the Evening: Of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church

I was interested to see this news item recently, about a meeting of Russian Greek Catholics over the fate of their little sui juris church. The church, which is fully Catholic, is in a bit of desperate state:

About 30 clerical delegates from Russian Catholic communities across the world, as well as laity, will meet in Seriate, just outside Bergamo, Italy, to discuss their future and once again petition Rome for an exarch, or bishop, and the revival of the Russian Catholic Exarchate.

“We have saints and martyrs, many dead in the gulags and shot for their Russian Catholic faith. I can’t believe that was all in vain,” said Fr Cross.

“This is our last hurrah. If this fails, you can forget about the Russian Catholic movement,” he said.

I have discussed the Russian Catholic Church before; it was formally recognized in 1908 by Pope Pius X (although it predates it) as a body of Russian Orthodox in communion with Rome; the liturgy was deliberately not latinized in any way. But it has had continual hard times since then; Byzantine Catholic Churches rooted in Slavonic liturgies were severely devastated by the rise of Communism, which brutally suppressed them whenever it could, and the Russian Catholics, being mostly in Russia, were the easiest to attack. There are now perhaps a few thousand Russian Byzantine Catholics scattered throughout the entire world. Legally, they have an exarchate (two, in fact, one for Russian and one for China), the Byzantine more-or-less equivalent of a vicariate, which is a little bit more organized than a mission (since it would technically be governed by a bishop). But the Russian Catholic Exarchates have been empty for ages -- the Russian since 1951 and the one for China since 1953. That is a long time for a small church to go without active cultivation by a bishop; it means, in practice, that the entire subcommunion is just a bunch of scattered parishes struggling on their own. Every so often, Russian Catholics have petitioned Rome for relief. It has never come, and it sounds like they are increasingly worried that it never will.

It would be a terrible thing. People often treat the Eastern Catholic churches as bridges between Catholic and Orthodox, and they are, but there are many other reasons why a church like the Russian Byzantine Catholic church needs to be cultivated. One that I was pleased to see Fr. Cross in the article explicitly mention was that they are a clear witness to the independence of the Church:

“In the same way that in the 19th century our Church was a rebuke to the [Orthodox] Church for allowing itself to become a department of state … now the same thing has happened,” said Fr Cross, archpriest of the Russian Catholic community in St Kilda East, a suburb of Melbourne.

“We are a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church that says; ‘Stop! Wrong way. Go back. Don’t go into the arms of the state … Soloviev’s message comes back; ‘Brothers and sisters, be careful.'”

And the Catholic communion as a whole needs something like the Russian Greek Catholic Church: the Russian Orthodox liturgy, the Russian Orthodox heritage, the full fruition of the two great Exarchs of Russia of the Russians, Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytskyi and Blessed Leontiy Leonid Feodorov, and also of the Russian Catholic martyrs under the terrors of Communism. Without these things, not just as curiosities but as living and growing parts of the Church, all Catholics are impoverished.

Various Links of Note

* Roger Scruton, If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?

* Berit Brogaard, Intuition vs. Reason

* Peter Krasniewski, In Honor of Saint Thomas: A Portion of St. Francis's Litany of the Attributes of God, which is based on praying through the Summa Theologiae.

* Caitlin Green, Global Britain? A brief chronology of an awareness of Britain's existence

* Alex Poulos, Textual Criticism and Biblical Authority in Origen's Homily on Ps. 77

* Edward Feser, Supervenience on the hands of an angry God, discusses Jaegwon Kim's analogy between his 'causal exclusion argument' and Jonathan Edwards's occasionalism.

Currently Reading

Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven
Lois McMaster Bujold, Cryoburn
Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth
Max Planck, Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics
Scott Ryan, Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality
Hyacinthe-Sigismond Gerdil, The Anti-Emile

Fierce Was the Flame While It Lasted

Libera Me
by Ernest Dowson

Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, befriend!
Long have I served thine altars, serve me now at the end,
Let me have peace of thee, truce of thee, golden one, send.

Heart of my heart have I offered thee, pain of my pain,
Yielding my life for the love of thee into thy chain;
Lady and goddess be merciful, loose me again.

All things I had that were fairest, my dearest and best,
Fed the fierce flames on thine altar: ah, surely, my breast
Shrined thee alone among goddesses, spurning the rest.

Blossom of youth thou hast plucked of me, flower of my days;
Stinted I nought in thine honouring, walked in thy ways,
Song of my soul pouring out to thee, all in thy praise.

Fierce was the flame while it lasted, and strong was thy wine,
Meet for immortals that die not, for throats such as thine,
Too fierce for bodies of mortals, too potent for mine.

Blossom and bloom hast thou taken, now render to me
Ashes of life that remain to me, few though they be,
Truce of the love of thee, Cyprian, let me go free.

Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, restore
Life to the limbs of me, liberty, hold me no more
Having the first-fruits and flower of me, cast me the core.

Lent VI

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him: and he saith of him: Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. Nathanael saith to him: Whence knowest thou me? (John 1:47-48)

The reason he had no guile is that, although he was wise, he was not embarrassed to follow a simple person. Thus Nathanael expressed in words what he believed in his heart, for he was not coming to Jesus with a desire to tempt him, but out of a desire to make progress in virtue. Proverbs 12:20 complains about a different sort of person: "Guile and deceit are in the hearts of those who think evil things." However, Nathanael does not believe Jesus' commendation until he has some certitude about what he's hearing, because men and women should not be eager to believe the good things that are said about them.

[St. Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Karris, tr. Franciscan Institute Publications (Saint Bonaventure, NY: 2007) p. 130.]

Shrine of Texas Liberty

Today in 1836 was the Battle of the Alamo. Antonio López de Santa Anna had been a war hero, of sorts, in the War of Mexican Independence, although he tended to inflate his actual role in the war, and then a war hero again defending Mexico from various incursions. He leveraged this fully to catapult himself to the forefront of Mexican politics, in which he became a champion for federalist government and democratic elections. He was elected President in 1833, but in fact seems to have been completely bored by the work of governing; he just let his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías, do it all. Gómez Farías, having a free hand, initiated sweeping liberal reforms, mostly aimed at breaking the power of the army and of the Catholic Church, the two dominant forces in Mexican politics. So sweeping were the reforms that they encountered stiff opposition, and then Santa Anna stepped in and overturned them. He dissolved the Mexican Congress and began centralizing power. Multiple states rebelled at the sudden loss of federal safeguards for state power. The best equipped of the states, Zacatecas, was utterly crushed by Santa Anna's army, and then it went northward to quell the rebellion in Cuahila y Tejas, a region heavily populated by immigrants from the United States.

It was a heavier project than Santa Anna bargained before, in part because, despite the fact that he liked to style himself 'the Napoleon of the West', he lacked Napoleon's sense of logistics. Zapatecas was in central Mexico, rich and populated; Texas was at the edge of the Mexican empire across some relatively desolate country. Supply lines stretched thin. Nights grew cold, increasing illness among the soldiers and overloading the limited medical resources. Santa Anna had a poor staff organization, and so it seems many of the problems never came to his attention; those that did, he often seemed to have dismissed because he thought that it was temporary inconvenience and that he could crack the Texians quickly.

In Texas, in a reasonably competent move, Santa Anna split his forces, sending one group along the coast under General José de Urrea and leading the other himself to San Antonio de Béxar. (The two represented the major fortresses already in operation to which the rebels had access.) Urrea pushed to Goliad, and his campaign was a resounding success: over and over again Urrea won battles overwhelming the Texian army. Santa Anna, in the meantime, found at San Antonio a Texian garrison, which had taken over after defeating the previous Mexican garrison. They were holed up in the Alamo mission complex. For thirteen days, Santa Anna's thousand or so soldiers laid siege to the couple hundred Alamo defenders under the command of William Travis. An intense battle was fought on March 6, and the mission walls breached.

While all of this was going on, representatives from all over Texas had met and declared independence on March 2; Travis had sent a letter to them asking for reinforcements, but it did not arrive until the Alamo had already fallen. And Santa Anna's army marched on.

The Alamo was an easy win -- a minor affair, as Santa Anna called it, despite the fierce defense. There was no way Santa Anna could have lost, short of reinforcements that could not possibly have arrived. And the Goliad Campaign was an extraordinary success, as well. But more was going on than just the military victories. Texas was now committed to full-scale fight, having declared independence. Santa Anna expected (and he was not alone) that general report of the Alamo victory would demoralize soldiers; the effect was more complicated. And at Goliad, Urrea had promised to treat prisoners fairly and well. Santa Anna had them executed on March 27 -- almost five hundred of them. These things were adding up to something that Santa Anna could not quite grasp. Military-wise, the Texans were massively on the run -- what is known as the Runaway Scrape, the massive evacuation and flight of citizens and soldiers from the advancing Mexican army. Sam Houston, in charge of the last remnants of the Texan army, was in constant retreat, to the immense demoralization of his soldiers and the anger of the interim Texas government. Texas was collapsing before the Mexican juggernaut.

Then Santa Anna camped his army in a poorly chosen location not far from Lynchburg Crossing, a marshy area with lots of tall grass, and on April 21, Houston came full strength against a completely unprepared and surprised Mexican Army, with the Texians shouting, "Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo!". The Battle of San Jacinto lasted eighteen minutes. Six hundred Mexican soldiers died (compared to eleven Texians) and Santa Anna himself was captured.

A significant portion of the Mexican Army remained under Urrea, who could have fought and could have won. But after weeks of negotiation, Santa Anna signed the Treaties of Valasco, and the war ended. The Mexican Army withdrew south. But nobody expected to end there; Urrea was gathering a bigger army, and everyone in Texas expected that he would be back soon. But it never quite happened. Santa Anna had been deposed (and notably the Mexican press and government were almost as harsh in their judgment of his Goliad decision as the Texans were), and there were still rebellions going on elsewhere. Eighteen minutes of vengeance for the Goliad Massacre and the Alamo had established Texas as a free republic.

Santa Anna would eventually push his way back into power by fighting off a French invasion, and try to invade again; it was fought off, but it was this, perhaps more than anything else, that really pushed Texas into considering annexation by the United States. Santa Anna would later be deposed again. Then he got back into power again. It's one of the features of his career that really does make him a sort of Napoleon of the West.

Lent V

Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples: because I languish with love. (Song 2:5)

Love dwelt among the saints with immeasurable celebration, through the coming of Christ. They who tasted the savor of that Love became insatiable; they were not satisfied with the various trials which they suffered, whether from Satan or from human beings, but they voluntarily added innumerable tribulations for themselves....Similarly, the Holy Illuminator and the great Paul and other saints like them considered the tribulations which came for Christ's sake to be gifts, like apples; thus Trdat said to Saint Gregory, 'Is that happiness?' and he responded, 'Yea, this is happiness!'

[St. Gregory of Narek, The Blessing of Blessings: Gregory of Narek's Commentary on the Song of Songs, Ervine, tr. Cistercian Publicans (Kalamazoo, MI: 2007), p. 105. The context of the exchange alluded to is that St. Gregory the Illuminator, who brought Christianity to Armenia, is said to have been tortured and beaten over the head severely for preaching Christianity.]

An Intention Argument for Doxastic Voluntarism

(1) If coming to believe is an act capable of being under direct voluntary control, doxastic voluntarism is true.
: This is one form of what is called 'doxastic voluntarism', by definition.
: Note that this does not require that the voluntary control be complete, indefeasible, or universal.
: Note that the reference is to 'coming to believe' rather than 'believing'.

(2) An act is under direct voluntary control when actually guided by intention to a particular end.
: Voluntary control requires (a) voluntariness and (b) control. The former requires that there be an intention; the latter requires that this intention guide action to a particular end.

(3) Coming to believe is sometimes actually guided by intention to a particular end.
: This can be seen by the fact that we seem to be able to have a direct effect on coming to believe in at least some specific ways.
: (a) We seem to be capable of affecting our coming to believe by resolving to follow evidence or be logical. We do sometimes resolve these things. Our resolving them is best explained by the fact that we find in our experience that we can come to believe under stricter or looser regimes, i.e., holding ourselves to stricter or looser standards, and these standards are voluntarily accepted or discarded. But this means we can change our coming to believe at least in some ways by resolution, which means that intention is a causal factor in coming to believe.
: (b) We seem to be capable of suspending judgment. But to suspend judgment is both an intentional act and one that directly affects our coming to believe. Therefore intention is capable of providing at least some guidance in coming to believe.
: (c) We seem to be able to refuse to believe, for ethical reasons; thus, for instance, we talk about refusing to believe that one's spouse is betraying one, because of the ethical value of trust. But refusing to believe would be a direct intentional control of coming to believe.
: (d) We seem to be capable of deferring to others in other belief; thus, for instance, we seem to defer to experts about what to believe about specific details in matters in which we are already in agreement. But this deference is an intentional act, and it appears to guide coming to believe.
: (e) We regularly propose pragmatic reasons for believing something (e.g., that it is easier to understand or more promising for future inquiry). In other areas of life in which we propose pragmatic reasons, it is because they are capable of being acted on voluntarily.

(4) Therefore coming to believe is an act capable of being under direct voluntary control.
: From (2) and (3).
: Note again that this is a fairly minimal conclusion: it does not require that we be able to believe arbitrarily and without any regard for evidence, for instance, and it does not require that our control be perfect or easy; nor does it require that we always are able in fact to do it. One of the most common errors in arguments against doxastic voluntarism is the assumption that it requires that coming to believe be arbitrary, easy to change, or involve nothing but choice, none of which are actually required in order to hold that we can control our belief, any more than saying that you have voluntary control over your limbs means that your movements will always, or even can ever, be purely arbitrary, always easily effected, or depend solely on one's will, all of which obviously may depend on conditions.

(5) Therefore doxastic voluntarism is true.
: From (1) and (4).
: Those who dabble in philosophical discussions of doxastic voluntarism may note that this is something of a 'tollensing' of the argument against doxastic voluntarism in Dion Scott-Kakures, "On Belief and Captivity of the Will." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (1994): 77-103, with some adaptation for difference of direction.

War in the Night

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good—" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, Chapter 1.