Literalism

I visit some conservative Catholic websites just to clear my head. I actually agree with most of what they say when it comes to the Church but disagree about the social implications many of the writers make. I think they end up in a conundrum where they need to betray autonomous civil authority to be true Catholics. That is, they seem to want our country to embody Catholic teaching which is not what it is there for and they fail to see, even in a rampantly conservative context, how greatly the modern Church is implicated in the societal changes they decry, most tragically in the Catholic Mass itself, which is so foundational and central to everything.

Catholic Masses are an aesthetic trainwreck. The old Mass embodied many things--most importantly, for me, human frailty and inadequacy, implicit in the use of a rite which was both immersive and elevating, and a view of the world centered on something other than humanity which you would think people get enough of outside of church. Anyway, the Catholics blew it and never fixed it. I heard it said that JFK was offering Americans a better shot at a decent life but that Americans actually wanted to be like him, handsome and smart and accomplished and rich. Presumably God is offering congregants the same thing, a shot at a better but non-material life.

Elevation is an excellent tool to get you there, whatever misunderstandings may occur as to the limitations of the thing. God may love you and care about you but your life is still likely to be shit, let alone resemble the grandeur and opulence of God's Church. Anyway, the Mass is now banal and an indescribable mess and insipid and infected with literalism, a horrible and--egad--Protestant infiltration. I am against literalism because it is the enemy of truth on every front and now the biblical, literalist, fundamentalist Christians have brought that mindset to our government with all the attendant perversity. And with the aid of the Catholics, the dumbasses.