In an interview with the Hawaii Catholic Herald, Hawaiian-born and recently Guam-ordained priest, Fr. Michael Jucutan, a product of our local Neocatechumenal seminary, noted that his favorite philosopher was Rene Girard.
That would explain a lot (and not just about Jucutan). Girard is best known for his interpretation of Christ's death as a murder and not a sacrifice. Much more to come on this.
See the commitment to Guam?? Note in the interview he's here "for now". I am ready to go anywhere. I remember thinking to myself, “Okay, yes Lord, I’m ready to go even to Congo.” I have been in the archdiocesan missionary seminary in Guam under Archbishop Anthony and I think my calling is to be here as of now. If the archbishop sees differently, I would gladly come to Hawaii. I do miss the lau lau and the poi!
ReplyDeleteThe priest is homesick. Give him a break!
ReplyDeleteNow, I am thinking to myself and asking did he come here to study because he knew it would be a free ride for him? Now that he has completed his studies and is finally ordained he can say adios, thank you for your generosity, and AAAALOOOOHA!
Going on the Rene Girard, correct me if I am wrong. According the the Law of Moses, if Christ was to uphold the. Law that human sacrifice is pagan practice, then his death would not have been a sacrifice. According to the Law if an innocent man is condemned to death then this is murder.
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to interpret Girard or are u stating your belief?
DeleteI just remembered bits and pieces of his work in a philosophy class I took at USD including something about a scapegoat.
DeleteAll looks very strange to me.
ReplyDeleteYes, can someone answer who is this guy?
ReplyDeleteYes. It is being prepared.
DeleteCondemning and killing an innocent man is murder. Philosophy or not, how else do you call it?
ReplyDeleteBefore I answer this, allow me to ask: is this your personal position or are you broadcasting what you are taught in the Neocatechumenal Way?
DeleteThis will be topic that most will not understand. For the NCW because they are so hooked on the rituals and the readings of the Old Testament, for them it is murder!
DeleteYou are correct that most in the NCW will not understand. That is quite evident already since they are even taught that the GIRM is a book of suggestions. However, others need to understand, that under the cover of Catholicism, the NCW teaches something very different than Catholicism, and that their money is being used to fund it. We'll get to it, but I first want to hear from the above as to whether or not this is a personal opinion.
DeleteYou gotta be kiddin'. U think killing innocents is not murder that you gotta ask? Wow! Didnt they teach u in Catholic school that unborn babies who were killed in abortion murder? U think the babies were not innocent?
DeleteSomeone says you forgot to read CCC321. According to Diana it is both a sacrifice and murder.
Delete321 Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end.
Delete@10:34 AM. Too bad you can't read. The question is was Christ's death on the Cross a murder or a sacrifice. Waiting.
DeleteSomeone has dylexia. It's not 321. Diana says it's 312.
Delete312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more",179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.
Delete"Diana" would be correct in calling the death of Christ both a murder and a sacrifice. There is nothing new about that. That Christ was murdered by our sins is standard Catholic teaching.
What IS new is Girard's emphasis on it to the exclusion of "sacrifice", a thought process that ultimately, through Kiko, finds itself concretized in the NCW's unique treatment of the Eucharist and its disdain for altars, the place of sacrifice.
For Girard, Christ is a goat, not a lamb. But we will wait for a more detailed analysis of Girard's anthropology before saying more about that here.
The Church teaches of course that Christ not only died for us but also because of us. The Church also teaches that Christ was both PRIEST and VICTIM. To say that Christ was only murdered, is to deny that he, as God, did not have complete control over every moment of his suffering and death, and that he was not both PRIEST and VICTIM.
In addition, an emphasis on the murder of Christ, which was effected by the slime of our sins, is unspeakably overshadowed by the reality of the once, for all, sacrifice of God made man, who willingly chose to make himself the Pascal Victim to reconcile us with heaven.
However, let us address one of the notions that seem to appear in the above comments. That Christ, an innocent man was condemned and killed, and thus was simply murdered. Christ was NOT an innocent man in the eyes of the Jews who wanted him killed. Under their law, Christ had blasphemed and the punishment for blasphemy was death. Thus, to them, Christ was guilty of the most grave offense a Jew could be guilty of, and the only reason they didn't kill him themselves is because executions had to be carried out by the existing civil authority, the Roman government.
This is not just an arcane discussion. At the root of it lies the truth of why the Neocatechumenal Way believes, teaches, and acts differently. Thus we will come back to it soon.
Thank you for the "Priest AND Victim" explanation. It's been well documented in Catholic theology and not something up for discussion for change. It refers back to the Eucharist and it's connection to the Passover celebration of the OT with the new covenant of the NT.
DeleteMy mistake in reading these comments is assuming that this teaching is well understood as doctrine among ALL Catholics. Sadly, either it is being ignored, withheld, or profaned. (I can't say "misinterpreted" or "misunderstood" because it has been made very clear in the teachings of the Church)
One must be very careful when trying to redefine or rewrite doctrine to fit a desired liturgy not inline with the Church. Someone (usually clergy) has already attempted this in the past and have been recognized as heresy by the Church (as evident in responses via councils and decrees clarifying doctrine). Why would anyone who desires to remain in the Church want to go down that path?
Btw, just a cursory reading of a few Catholic bloggers that feature Mr. Girard theories, I found that many also claim that he is simply a philosopher and certainly not a theologian. Are they playing it safe? Perhaps. I can certainly see why.
Jose. You ask "Why would anyone who desires to remain in the Church want to go down that path?
DeleteThe answer is twofold. First there is the average member who has no idea they are going down a different path.
We are into the second generation of I'm Okay-You're Okay - Jesus loves you just the way you are - Catholicism. They simply have no reference point for true Catholic teaching.
That's not Kiko's fault. That's the fault of bishops and clergy who have either failed to authentically catechize their flocks, or who - and there are a lot of these - purposely did exactly what Kiko is doing now: created a personal church to their own liking.
Which brings us to the second point. Back in the 60's, in your face revolution was fashionable and fun, but hardly effective. There was one man who laughed at all the hippies, war protesters, and radical feminists. He knew that their efforts were for naught, that they would run out of gas with little effect. He laughed because he had a better way, a much more lethal way, a way to bring institutions crumbling down from within.
When one reads his principles for revolution, one is struck with how satanically simple they are, which is probably why he dedicated his book, Rules for Radicals, to Satan.
The man was Saul Alinsky, and he had one disciple who would become famous, Barack Obama. Obama mastered Alinsky's principles and has applied them with great effect to the "fundamental transformation" of the nation he now leads.
I don't know if Kiko knew of Alinsky or ever read his book, but Kiko is the very embodiment of Alinsky principles, especially Principle #2: "Never go outside the experience of your people."
So whereas the protesters of the 60's purposely went outside the experience of the community they were trying to transform by how they looked, talked, and acted, Alinsky taught his revolutionaries to look, talk, and act like the community they were to transform.
Thus Barack Obama, who despises the Constitution, uses the language of the people who wrote it. Thus Kiko Arguello, who despises the post-Constantinian Church especially the priesthood as it came to be, uses the language of the Church he desires to transform.
I could write a book on this. It is massively effective. But another time. Luckily I read Screwtape Letters long ago.
It's a personal opinion. Are you saying that killing an innocent as to whether it's murder or not depends on who taught it to me? It was both the Catholic Church and my parents that taught me that killing innocents is murder. Would you call abortion "murder" or not? Abortion is the killing of innocents, and that is murder.
ReplyDeleteNo. I am asking you if you believe that Christ's death on the cross was a murder or a sacrifice. Waiting.
DeleteInteresting to learn about this philosopher. But I think Jucatan just threw it out there to sound good. Kant, Hegel, Heidegger are my favorites!!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but probably not. The SanVitoresInstitute.com website is loaded with keyword references to Girard and philosophical terms associated with him.
DeleteThe website was deliberately set up to attract web traffic to the site for those connected to Girard's philosophy. This tells us that Jucutan, and everybody else at this seminary, is probably indoctrinated with Girard's philosophy. Otherwise, why is the name of no other philosopher - or even a theologian - written into the Keywords for the Institute's website?
In fact, it tells us who the real man is behind the Neocatechumenal Way. Girard's philosophy is as embedded in Kiko's catechesis as the Keywords are embedded in the website.
Here they are:
filosofia, philosophy, noticias, news, noticia, new, revista, revistas, xiphias, gladius, asociacion, antropologia, anthropology, violencia, violence, religion, religion, René Girard, mimesis, mimicry, mimetic, literatura, literature, ethnography, etnografia, cristianismo, christianity, universidad, university, institute, catholic, teological"
Go to the website, right click, and search for "Keywords". More to come on this.
Note: revista, revistas, xiphias, gladius, Rene Girard, violencia, violence, mimesis, mimicry, mimetic are the Girard words. Google any of the above words with Girard's name and they come up together.
Delete