As human beings, despite our species intelligence that gives us the blessing and the curse of language, we are sometimes too prone to the allure of simplicity and certainty.
Whatever happened to James Carroll? Now he has re-emerged at TomDispatch and he is on the case of Catholic fundamentalism. It seems that Obama is going to Notre Dame University to pick up an honorary degree and speak at the graduation. I trust they sing Gadeamus Igitur on that occasion. Obama is too liberal for some among the Catholic Hierarchy.
On the basis that James Carroll has something to say on this issue an extended quotation is allowable:
In their shared determination to restore the medieval European Catholicism into which they were born, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI became inadvertent avatars of the new Catholic fundamentalism, a fact reflected in the character of the bishops they appointed to run the Church, so many of whom now find President Obama to be a threat to virtue. The great question now is whether this defensive, pre-Enlightenment view of the faith will maintain a permanent grip on the Catholic imagination. John Paul II and Benedict XVI may be self-described apostles of peace, yet if this narrow aspect of their legacy takes hold, they will have helped to undermine global peace, not through political intention, but deeply felt religious conviction.
No one can today doubt that the phenomenon of “fundamentalism” is having an extraordinary impact on our world. But what precisely is it? Some fundamentalists pursue openly political agendas in, for instance, Northern Ireland, Israel, and Iran. Some like Latin American Pentecostals are apolitical. In war zones like Sudan, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Sri Lanka, fundamentalism is energizing conflict. Most notably, after the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, the insurgent groups there jelled around fundamentalist religion, and their co-extremists are now carrying the fight, terrifyingly, in the direction of the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan. Catholic fundamentalists in the U.S. are far from being terrorists, but an exclusionary, intolerant, militant true belief is on display this week in their rallying to denounce President Obama in Indiana.
Obviously, these manifestations are so varied as to resist being defined by one word in the singular, which is why scholars of religion prefer to speak of “fundamentalisms.” But they all do have something in common, and it is dangerous. The impulse toward fundamentalism may begin with fine intentions: the wish to affirm basic values and sources of meaning which seem threatened. Rejecting any secular claims to replace the sacred as the chief source of meaning, all fundamentalisms are skeptical of Enlightenment values, even as the Enlightenment project has developed its own mechanisms of self-criticism. But the discontents of modernity are only the beginning of the problem.
He then goes on to say that the “traditionalists” reject science, modernity and the enlightenment but perhaps lack a critique in terms of materialism, “objective reality”, industrialism and globalization. One might suggest the “traditionalist” have the right instincts but lack philosophical and political understanding. Apparently, the Vatican as the smallest nation state in the world, is not so lacking:
In Rome, a tradition of realpolitik tempers the fundamentalist urge of the current establishment. The highest Church authorities have long been accustomed to putting issues of theological purity second to the exigencies of state power.
If we, like Socrates would suggest we do, recognize the limitations of our thinking, yet hold to the truth as we understand it, we might not be so susceptible to fundamentalism while open to debate and dialogue.