Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: The American Catholic's Donald McLarey Shows Us Why The Neo-Catholic Cannot Convert the World

Donald R. McClarey of The American Catholic provides a devastating insight into the logical absurdities which render the neo-Catholic apologetic impotent in the face of the modern atheistic onslaught.

Mr. McClarey has noticed that the Holy Father reinstituted, in His Christmas Eve Mass, the ancient Christmas Eve proclamation from the Roman Martyrology.

This ancient chant presents the Faith of the Church, as it was universally understood, held, and......well, yes... proclaimed right up until the modern conceptions of evolution, of the Big Bang, of "uniformitarianism", rendered it.............inoperative in light of alleged scientific advances, all of which depend for their veracity upon a never-demonstrated, universally assumed, metaphysical presupposition, which underlies the entirety of the recent "climb downs" from the Church's ancient, apostolic, confident and certain proclamation of the revelation from God.

This metaphysical assumption is known as the "Copernican Principle", and it is in very great observational difficulty indeed.

But we already knew that.

In the meantime, back to Mr. McClarey, and the incredible insight his post provides into the twisted, pretzel-like contortions to which he is forced by his neo-Catholic "apologetic".

First, I must congratulate Mr. McClarey for actually posting the ancient chant, traditionally sung at Christmas Eve Mass, in its entirety. His happiness, when hearing it at the Holy Father's Christmas Eve Mass, is proof positive that the sensus fidelium continues to resonate within  Mr. McClarey- he instinctively rejoices to see the Church's ancient and apostolic Faith once again proclaimed, as it was for centuries, to all of his Catholic ancestors:

The twenty-fifth day of December.

In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;

the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;

the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;

the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;

the one thousand and thirty-second year from David’s being anointed king;

in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;

in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;

the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;

the whole world being at peace,

in the sixth age of the world,

Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,

being conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months having passed since his conception,

was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary, being made flesh.

Now.

Please stop and think very carefully, honestly, and logically for a moment.

If you actually rejoice at the above, and yet can turn around and deny every single one of its assertions.........then you have contracted the same strange logical affliction which Mr. McClarey demonstrates in his unforgettable post.

How could one rejoice at the recovery of a Church proclamation......if everything it says is false?

If everything it says is false, then ought not one instead rejoice at the modern reformulation (it is not, needless to say, a "new translation. It is a complete re-write)?

But the strange reaction of Mr. McLarey renders the terrible internal contradictions of his worldview as transparent as can be.

He does not post, he says,  this ancient chant in order to rejoice at its truthfulness.

He rejoices at its.....lack of feminist gender politics????

Yup.

There we have it.

Read the comments thread for the rest of the gory details.

One last point:

Mr. McClarey cites Dr. Tom Bridgeman's piece (I provide a link in the comments thread to my response).

Finally, Mr. McClarey has drearily predictable resort to that last miserable refuge of the blogger who cannot answer his interlocutor's legitimate points--- he bans me, and simply Memoryholes my final response:

The Memory Hole is also a very congenial tool for the neo-Catholic, Don.

You shall never be banned from my website, I assure you.

BTW, here is the apology Dr. Tom Bridgeman issued as a direct result of the response I linked above:

http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/03/apology-to-dr-hartnett.html

The neo-Catholic can never persuade the atheist, if he himself lacks the courage to defend the Church's Tradition.

But then again, the neo-Catholic cannot even persuade himself, if he insists that the Church has been wrong in her ancient Faith and its yearly proclamation during the Christmas Eve Mass, for centuries upon centuries.......

St. Athanasius, pray for us!