I like to think that the Patrimonial Anglican lay theologian C S Lewis offered a good refutation of the Bergoglianist error. By 'Bergoglianism' I do not mean the thoughts of PF within himself ... how could I know these? ... but the view expressed so loudly by his admirers: that the Holy Spirit speaks certainly through PF's mouth, even when he is a very long way from his Cathedra and not least when he appears to be a considerable distance from the Great Tradition. They use the Holy Spirit as a fast, plausible and cheap way of bridging the gap between the Deposit of Faith and the words of Jorge Bergoglio ... as their own personal, ready-made Deus ex machina.
In Lewis's novel, an eminent physicist called Edward Rolles Weston (1896-1942) has fallen under the influence of the Enemy. He and a philologist called Edwin Ransom, a Christian, are thrown together on an unfallen planet called Perelandra. Weston is speaking here:
" ... God is spirit, Ransom. Get hold of that. You're familiar with that already. Stick to it. God is a spirit."
"Well, of course. But what then?" ... ...
[Weston] "It is through me that Spirit itself is at this moment pushing on to its goal."
"Look here," said Ransom, "one wants to be careful about this sort of thing. There are spirits and spirits, you know."
"Eh?" said Weston. "What are you talking about?"
[Ransom] "I mean a thing might be a spirit and not good for you."
[Weston] "But I thought you agreed that Spirit was the good -- the end of the whole process? I thought you religious people were all out for spirituality? What is the point of asceticism -- fasts and celibacy and all that? Didn't we agree that God is a spirit? Don't you worship Him because He is pure spirit?"
[Ransom] "Good heavens, no! We worship Him because He is wise and good. There's nothing specially fine about simply being a spirit. The Devil is a spirit."
Perhaps someone should send PF a copy of Lewis's Space trilogy.
Splendid! This would compete for compulsory posting on the staffroom door of every 'Catholic' school with that marvellous passage in which he shows that claim that Our Lord is really just a humanistic moralist is to reduce him to either (1) the greatest fraud in history; or (2) a madman akin to the man who insists that he is a poached egg.
ReplyDeleteThe devil is a spirit and evil. The Eucharist is material and all Holy. They say that Chritianity is the most material of all religions, and of course we Catholics are more material than other Christians. We have never gone for vague "spirituality". I usually insist that I am religious but not spiritual.
ReplyDeleteYou will all be glad to know that I was introduced to the Space Trilogy a few years ago by the Vice-Rector of an English seminary. There is thus hope for us yet in the future.
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