Correcting the Propagation of Heresies

Here in secular America, the silver lining to our steady regression is our short history. Though there certainly is much to take away, there is, at least, an endpoint, a limit to just how far back we can go.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were early concepts, but we really didn't start putting our money where our quills were until we were a century into our great experiment. Progress has been slow but steady, and, at least in my warped bubble, I have always taken my freedoms for granted. How difficult can it possibly be to recapture only a century or two of progress?

It sometimes seems a bit more complicated in the Old World, with its long history of alternating darkness and renaissance (with both big and little "R's"), with a generous helping of persecution and murder in the name of religion and nationalist fervor. Things are confusing there these days, as here, as the tug of war continues.

Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis. A "filial correction against propagation of heresies" -- a tool that has not been used since the 14th century. Kind of like autos-de-fe and other clever ways of eliminating "otherness" and shielding the "faithful." It's refreshing to know that the backwards moving voice of the Catholic Church is alive and well, with a group of ultra conservative theologians issuing a medieval style rebuke of Pope Francis for his softening of Church policies on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, not to mention clergy who choose marriage over other forms of human frolic.

Pope Francis' brand of heresy may indeed prove to be one of the things that save the Church, with its dwindling membership and the recent weeding out of child molesters from the priesthood, but that's certainly not my business. We Jews have enough trouble with assimilation, and the likes of Ivanka and Jared giving us a bad name. We Americans have enough trouble with the presidential seal of approval on white supremacy. Do we not all have bigger things to worry about, after weeks of news coverage of what looks to be Mother Nature's push toward the "end of days," than what other folks choose to do in their adult bedrooms?

I have not had many priests in my life, but I remember fondly my first one -- Father Ed. As decent and pious, to me, once he married a woman as he was when he was at the helm of my in-laws' church, and always welcome, even after his official defrocking, in my in-laws' home. I remember the kind priest who insisted I join him in the sacristy before my father-in-law's funeral mass, a Jewish woman in a sea of male Catholic clergy, preparing for our readings. My mother-in-law was always amused, years later, when he would ask after me, by name, and my husband (her son; old whathisname).

We've had our own stake burnings here, sadly much more recently than the middle ages. We might as well take a few more pages from those dark times, maybe take a stab at a correctio filialis -- to stop, once and for all, the propagation of heresies and other abominations from the Peoples' House.