Heaven help me, but this piece by Mark Shea is actually very good. Even if I still find him to be a jackass.
Also, I think it ignores a rather key factor, and that is Scripture, in its presentation of prayer, certainly seems to favor a masculine approach. That does not mean Marian prayer is thus anti-scriptural, but it does mean the gender classification, though interesting, may be somewhat artificial. I think Fulton Sheen and JPII's prayers seem Marian and rather masculine. The other element he plays fast and loose with is this: Catholics do not worship Mary, but we pray to her. Essentially. For Protestants, that is basically the same thing as worship. Lastly, if Catholic culture is feminine, we would have to ask, "Why?!" Especially given an all male priesthood. If its focus is Christ, and not Mary, and we pray to God the Father, and the priests are all male, how on earth could it be construed as a feminine spirituality?
Meanwhile, given I still think the piece is pretty good, does this mean I might have found Louis Bouyer a jackass?! I hope not! I mean, he was French. I cannot imagine him not finding Shea painfully bourgeoise. I have no room to talk, but still, I laugh ...
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Is Catholic culture feminine? Is Evangelical culture masculine?
Upon reading Mark Shea's "Masculine and Feminine, Evangelical and Catholic" (NCR, December 11, 2014), Guy Noir immediately picked up his sharpened quill and wrote:
If I may, since I don't often visit this blog and I haven’t a clue who Mark Shea is. Catholic culture is not feminine in character, but has become so quite recently in the last circa fifty years, i.e., after Vatican II.
ReplyDeleteThe reason? We have stopped believing. The Modernist Relativism which has pervaded the Church since Vatican II is certainly not masculine in character, and as such, has enormous support from the very high percentage of feminised, i.e., Homosexually inclined clergy who have been allowed their head.
The Secular world is in the ascendancy at present everywhere, not because they have the better arguments, but because the Catholic world, having lost its traditional masculinity, has conceded defeat.
Amen, Jacobi. You need to read the prophetic George Bernanos (or maybe you have already?) a phenomenal French 20th century writer who decried the still ongoing evisceration of Western Civilization, opposing it to the bold Catholicism one finds in some of his characters and historical figures such St. Joan of Arc, St. Therese of Liseux, and the Martyrs of Compiegne.
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