“you must not remember your forefathers…” Wherein Fr. Z rants.

I ran into a notable quote today at one of my daily stops, the estimable Laudator.  The quote is from the work On the False (or Dishonest) Embassy by the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes (+384 BC).  The context is the negotiation of the “Peace of Philocrates” which dealt with a war between Athens and Macedonia’s Philip (father of Alexander).  Athens sent as negotiators Philocrates, Demosthenes and Aeschines.  The latter, during the negotiations, seems not to have done the best by Athens and so, later, he was tried for treason (for which he was eventually cleared).    He was later prosecuted again by Demosthenes and Aeschines, though acquitted, was ruined.

Hey!  Politics as blood sport?  You ain’t seen anything until you’ve read how the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans went for each other’s chitlin’s.    What’s going on today in the USA with a certain party and its mongrel agents against a certain candidate gives you a modern taste… but just a taste.

Anyway, … the quote.  The mania today in some circles to disconnect the Church’s theology and liturgy (liturgy is theology!) and entirely remake Catholic identity in a – pace Paul – worldly conformation is, not an existential threat to the Church, because that would be contrary to Christ’s promises and the Church’s indefectibility, a vexing pragmatic threat.  It is vexing because, through the pragmatic diminution of the Church in the world, souls will be lost to the world’s allurements and many who might otherwise be drawn in, will remain at a distance.

Am I wrong?

Of course God finds a way.  One of those ways is His permissive will regarding persecution.  “Blood is the seed of the Church”, as Tertullian put it.  Churches are being burned in France and baptisms were double this year.   Big shots in the Church bend and twist some moral teachings and the Magisterium of previous Popes into unrecognizable tangles of ambiguity, but many are making the choice to get informed about the truth with reliable sources.   The environment we are now in is a product of systematic efforts both secular and ecclesial, to dumb people down to acceptance of falsehood or indifference to truth.  It didn’t happen overnight.  It won’t be solved overnight.    We must persevere.

Perseverance and continuity, steadfast reliance on grace and firmness in tradition are the way forward in the maelstrom.

Meanwhile, the quote from Demosthenes which sparked this little midday rant:

Words Deserving Many Deaths

Demosthenes 19.15-16 (On the Dishonest Embassy; him = Philocrates; tr. Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge):

Aeschines rose and spoke in support of him, using language for which he deserves, God knows, to die many deaths, saying that you must not remember your forefathers…

ἀναστὰς ἐδημηγόρει καὶ συνηγόρει ἐκείνῳ πολλῶν ἀξίους, ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ πάντες θεοί, θανάτων λόγους, ὡς οὔτε τῶν προγόνων ὑμᾶς μεμνῆσθαι δέοι…