Aye yai yai, the election. Back when I was a fan of the Patriots – I am from the area and was a fan way back in their terrible days, when getting a seat at Foxborough Stadium was cheap and easy – I could not watch tight games towards the end. I would leave the room, hum a tune or make a cup of tea, and then pop my head out like a groundhog on the second of Feb to get a peek at the scores. This is how I feel about the current election. Not only has this one been as emotional as a Dallas season finale, but it all but promises to drag on for days afterwards with court cases and “found” ballots buried next to Jimmy Hoffa’s body buried under the 50th yard line in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Aye caramba! So I will be hiding out somewhere in the upper Midwest where I cannot be tempted to turn on a radio or TV set. That might just be in the chicken coop in the barn out back. That said, this week’s essay/blog will be as short as it has to be, given that I have to get back to packing enough MRI’s to last through the mostly peaceful protests should Trump win, or the mostly peaceful celebrations should Biden claim the throne. Maybe one hundred days? Probably only four or five, but I will pack enough bourbon for 100 just in case. It will be difficult to write while suffering the DT’s, but I will try my darndest to come on back sometime next week.
Phew. Now that I am unburdened, I would like to address the comment that Cal made on the last essay. I do not have it before me, but I recall his frustration at not being able to know the truth, and his doubtful take on the infallibility of the pope. On the latter: few Catholics and fewer non-Catholics know what this is about. I only know because I have had a share of skeptical friends who have brought this before me to finish off any argument they have made against the Church, which made me curious enough to actually go to the horse’s mouth – Church doctrine – to find out. When I read what infallibility really means, I breathed a sigh of relief because, no, the old men of the Church have not told us to believe that the pope is always infallible. Which is to say that if the pope declares that Polish sausage is better eaten with Polish beer rather than Italian Chianti, the faithful do not have to agree. No. The pope is only infallible on matters of deep Church doctrine, much as the Supreme Court has the final word on Constitutional meaning, the Church having a higher guide in the Holy Spirit. Such doctrinal revelations come about less often than a constitutional amendment from our congress. One of the last I know of happened in 1854, when Pope Innocent IX declared that Mary was immaculate, which does not mean that she was a virgin – no one in the church argues about that – but that she was the one and only person conceived in the womb without sin (Jesus is God in man form, something on a different scale). No one, then, should worry about the pope telling them who to vote for or what toothpaste to use. The pope might say we should think or choose or do something or other, just as Francis recently said he might approve of gay unions, but those are only opinions. So go ahead and use Crest instead of Colgate for all the angels care.
But that does bleed into the next serious issue that Cal raised: finding truth. As I hoped to make clear in the past essay, truth comes through the Holy Spirit and is not fully translatable into human vocabulary. You know it when you are given it, and you can make sure that it is at least not evil because it will have no evil – no sin, such as illicit sex or murder – in it. You can also test it against what Christ has said, and, if you are Catholic, against what the founding fathers and doctors of the Church have understood from Christ and the Holy Spirit, including what the pope has found during extremely rare revelations of doctrine.
Given that, I can see why Cal or anyone else would have a problem with such revealed truth. Trouble is, there is no other way. Truth IS too big for our normal mental processes. That is why faith is so essential – faith in Christ and in those who have further revealed his meaning to us. So it is that truth is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit in a personal way, verifiable against the words of Christ (or for other true religions, against their doctrine), or, if it is not, through faith in our holy leaders and ancestors. That is the “tried and true” part of the essay in question.
I know, I know; we would all like to nail down the revelation of truth with something akin to a mathematical formula, but it does not work that way in full. In part it does sometimes, as we are given special inspirations, but not in full. In the end, what I must say to you, Cal, is that, apart from personal revelation, we are told by all the higher ups to have faith and patience. After all, ya never know what’s around the next cosmic corner.
Kinda like the election. Who knows? As the current novena I am reciting says, pray not for what we deserve but for the election of the best possible candidates for us all. Also, in step with Catholic doctrine, pray to love the candidates of the parties we disagree with. I know, such a thing is harder to do than to have faith in revelation. Jesus said that his yoke was not heavy, but no one could ever claim that doing the will of God was always fun and easy.
Go ahead and vote, then. I’ll eat a lasagna MRI and give a toast to you with the beginnings of my 4th bottle of cheap post-apocalypse bourbon. If not continuously full of faith, at least I will be full of something.