THE KNUCKLEHEAD
'
S GUIDE TO COVENANTAL THEOLOGY
87
Traditional Catholicism, despite its best efforts to be "Reasonable,"
in the end is always willing to abandon its intellectual commitments, to
tolerate even jaw-dropping intellectual incoherence, in order to choose
"Faith," the sacramental reality of the New Covenant mediated in and
through the worship of the Church, and thus, at least from within its
own commitments, it can deny wholeheartedly all charges of (for
example) obscurantism and exclusivity, because of its worship in
Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Light.
On the other hand, New Class Catholicism, whatever its efforts to
be "Faithful," in the end always decides for "Reason;" that is, it allies
itself with the knowledge produced by and mediated in and through the
New Class,
1
and thus, far from denying that it accommodates itself to
and collaborates with the New Class, it must proudly take its
accommodation and collaboration as its own fundamental
commitment.
Thus not only traditionalist Catholics but also the secular New
Class might be able to see the Catholic New Class as a Vichy
government, as the managers of Catholicism on behalf of the secular
New Class. The secular New Class certainly deals with the Catholic
New Class exactly as in the manner of the Vichy: it is worthy of note
solely in terms of its reliability and public relations value, and is
otherwise ignored as inconsequential. Is it too much of a stretch to
find, behind the repeated warnings of New Class Catholics about the
dire consequences that will inevitably result if "the Church does not
change," the warning of the secular New Class that, unless our New
Class Catholic managers can get us Catholics under better control, our
beloved, if ultimately pointless, 'religion' may have to be eased out of
'modern' life entirely?
1. The idea that knowledge is not 'out
there' (in a time-less 'place') but is
produced in time is a notion traditional
Catholics abhor and New Class
Catholics largely hide even from
themselves as politically inconvenient -
- both once again accepting (if from
opposite directions) the completely
pagan idea that, apart from the time-
less, the only reality is power.
There is thus a big difference in the names that traditional
Catholicism and New Class Catholicism might be called. Within
traditional Catholicism's own commitments, the names called are
unfair and untrue. Within New Class Catholicism, the names called
appear to be consistent with its fundamental commitments.
Be that as it may, not only the fundamental silliness of New Class
Catholicism, but also how easily, how 'logically,' it spread since the
Second Vatican Council, has to be put directly at the door of traditional
Catholic thought. New Class Catholicism's growth is not due simply to
the failures of a politically maladept Catholic episcopate, nor simply to
Sinister Outside (or even Inside) Forces. New Class Catholicism is,
genuinely, a more 'logical' traditional Catholic thought. (It is less
faithful than traditional Catholic thought, but it is more 'logical.')
New Class Catholic biblical exegesis, for example, takes a
dehistoricized cosmology as its fundamental assumption. For New
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.