CONGREGATION OF THE PROPAGANDA FIDE

 

CONGREGATION OF THE PROPAGANDA FIDE

Robert, on his blog Medievil Renaissance 13th century Rob (don't ask) seems to have discovered a new term and concept - Naturalism. Have a look at his latest post here if you want: ARE NATURALISTS THE NEW ENEMY?

Richard replied to this post with one of his own: FOR GOD'S SAKE!

OK?

Right. I guess, like me you are wondering what naturalism is. I looked it up on-line and found a lot of gobbledygook from various christian and catholic sources that only confused rather than enlightened me.  Here's a couple of examples:

A central thought in ontological naturalism is that all spatiotemporal entities must be identical to or metaphysically constituted by physical entities.

- Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

Naturalism, in literature and the visual arts, late 19th- and early 20th-century movement that was inspired by adaptation of the principles and methods of natural science, especially the Darwinian view of nature, to literature and art.

- Brittanica.

Sorry- wrong references. Actually, those two weren't confusing at all. They are concepts from the real world. The ones that confused me are the ones that came from Robert's word - the world of catholic apologists (sorry) and various catholic journals. Here are a couple of examples:

Naturalism is not so much a special system as a point of view or tendency common to a number of philosophical and religious systems; not so much a well-defined set of positive and negative doctrines as an attitude or spirit pervading and influencing many doctrines. As the name implies, this tendency consists essentially in looking upon nature as the one original and fundamental source of all that exists, and in attempting to explain everything in terms of nature. Either the limits of nature are also the limits of existing reality, or at least the first cause, if its existence is found necessary, has nothing to do with the working of natural agencies. All events, therefore, find their adequate explanation within nature itself. But, as the terms nature and natural are themselves used in more than one sense, the term naturalism is also far from having one fixed meaning.
(I) If nature is understood in the restricted sense of physical, or material, nature, naturalism will be the tendency to look upon the material universe as the only reality, to reduce all laws to mechanical uniformities and to deny the dualism of spirit and matter. Mental and moral processes will be but special manifestations of matter rigorously governed by its laws.
(II) The dualism of mind and matter may be admitted, but only as a dualism of modes or appearances of the same identical substance. Nature includes manifold phenomena and a common substratum of the phenomena, but for its actual course and for its ultimate explanation, it requires no principle distinct from itself. In this supposition, naturalism denies the existence of a transcendent cause of the world and endeavours to give a full account of all processes by the unfolding of potencies essential to the universe under laws that are necessary and eternal.
(III) Finally, if the existence of a transcendent First Cause, or personal God, is admitted as the only satisfactory explanation of the world, Naturalism claims that the laws governing the activity and development of irrational and of rational beings are never interfered with. It denies the possibility, or at least the fact, of any transitory intervention of God in nature, and of any revelation and permanent supernatural order for man.

- Catholic Encyclopaedia New Advent

 

NATURALISM
Definition

The view that the only reality that exists is nature, so that divine grace is either denied or ignored. Philosophical naturalism claims that human beings were never elevated to a supernatural destiny; they will reach their final destiny by the sole use of their natural, individual, and social powers. Practical naturalism is human conduct that, by excluding prayer and the use of supernatural channels of grace, in effect says that the purpose of human existence is purely natural.

- The Catholic Dictionary

OK, I did warn you.

So why am I bothering with this? It's not really 'naturalism' that I'm interested in. I've noticed recently that Robert, after attending Sunday mass and listening to the sermons by his new priest Father Orange*, then comes out in his blog posts with 'new' ideas and arguments.

Sermon: noun

1. FORMAL 

a talk on a religious or moral subject, especially one given during a church service and based on a passage from the Bible.
"I preached my first sermon on original sin"

2. INFORMAL
a long or tedious piece of admonition or reproof; a lecture.
"he understood that if he said any more he would have to listen to another lengthy sermon"

- Oxford Dictionary

Back in the day, when I attended Sunday mass the sermons were more of the formal ones as in (1) above. The priest would write up something over a couple of whiskies on Saturday night and present it to the congregation the next day. Every church in New Zealand would have had one of these happening and most likely around the world. It is highly likely that similar stories and themes were used in a great many of them but more by coincidence than design.

I suspect that Father Orange's sermons and those promulgated by all of his ilk in New Zealand and around the world are more like the informal example as in (2) above and all carry the same message by design rather than coincidence.

Is this proper? I think it's more like propaganda.

It was quite evident over the last four years of Donald Trump's presidency in the USA that talking points used by Republican senators and congresspeople were exactly the same. The same corny expressions or blatant lies were used by all when they spoke to media. The right wing media also used the same words and expressions (and lies) to the point where it was becoming a bit of a joke. This was organised and contrived by the Republicans led by the odious Mitch McConnell.

I believe that the catholic church has become more media savvy and has copied examples of instant worldwide communication misinformation as practised by political groups, financial corporations, Big Pharma companies, environmental lobbyists, environmental vandals, marketers - and hell - everyone in recent years. The catholic church though isn't new to worldwide communication misinformation as its whole existence has depended on the seeding of lies and complicated constructions (backed up by extreme violence and  standover tactics that Goebbels would have only dreamed of having). What's new is the immediacy of information communication whereby they now have and the ability to organise their missions around the world, in every city, town and village to carry the message of the week to the needy, the naive and the people who love them.

I'm unhappy to say that I think it's working going by the way that Robert, an educated and fundamentally nice and sensible family guy has embraced it.

PROPAGANDA

Politics

Roman Catholic Church
noun

1. Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.
"he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda"

2. A committee of cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church responsible for foreign missions, founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV.

  - Oxford Dictionary

* Father Orange? Donald Trump was known as the orange man!