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#232: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-20 11:48:07
Edited:
2025-12-17 18:23:29
Imported:
2024-12
Tags:

Content

So you're considering the Catholic Church? Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe. (Happy birthday, K.)

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Madra na Móna

"The following day, Holy Saturday, I reached St. Francis-Xavier's at the moment of the benediction of the baptismal fonts. Joyce was standing among the group of men who had accompanied the priest into the side chapel. He was enveloped in a thick cape and carried a cane over his arm. His face was sad under his gray hair. He was following the ritual from very close. When the procession regained the altar, he walked slowly as far as one of the lateral aisles of the church and rested there, leaning against a grill. I joined him. He looked frightened, recognized me in the shadows by my voice, slipped his frail hand into mine. Then, as soon as the mass began, he made a nervous, impatient gesture and murmured in English, "I have seen the rebirth of fire and of water. Enough until next year. The rest is without interest." And he walked rapidly away, his face set, while the Gloria burst out from the bell-towers."

Joey Fazzoli

Man thank you so much for putting into words the maddening feeling of trying to pick apart your past and reverse engineer catholic guilt and religious trauma so that you can have some semblance of a normal brain, then watching the biggest dorks in human history try to teach themselves about catholicism so they can be conservative in a newer, more annoying way. It’s like, you morons have no idea how fucked up this shit is and how much I envy you for not having it burned into your psyche as a kindergartener.

NYCM&AHole

Heidell is CIA JFK assassination of the A-Team’s Colonel Lynch

Joe S.

Have you heard the good news of our Lord and Savior, Josh Christ?

Lox Schmear

Being an Irish catholic whose parents were lapsed and didn’t set foot in a church after confirmation, all this still applies. It’s in the blood, you can’t escape it and it has nothing to do with beliefs. Thanks for the great episode.

Madra na Móna

Re: The Anathemata, as someone who spent a lot of time w/ Jones, has always been something that sat odd w/ me that despite the recognition of survivals of other religious practices in the tridentine rite, Jones posits the anamnesis of Christ, fractio panis, etc. in the mass as sort of the totalising instance of the dying-rising God which is above history reaching both forward and backward into what he calls fore-time, saving all those "whose works follow them" (i.e. all antropoids who by dint of being able to make, and thus make any kind of sacrament are made human). Have never been able to find a great argument in The Anathemata (which for the most part hangs together very neatly) why Christ sh/d be the extratemporal instance and armature of the sacred while all other gods like Osiris, Attis, Adonis, even Arthur are consigned to mere history. W/d you have anything on that in further eps maybe? Also w/r/t the tumulus altar comparison, I'm fairly sure in one of the footnotes Jones digs out an old prescription from somewhere in canon law that every altar sh/d contain the physical relic of the dead.

Karl Childers

this was a trip to listen to because both of my parents were raised catholic, and god bless them they did their best to raise me secular, but i can tell from listening that they almost entirely failed. the omnipresent ineradicable guilt, the adolescent terror that any covetous thought of any degree was on a continuum with rape, the compulsion to divorce oneself from one's own body, i got all that shit without even growing up with an institution to blame it on. catholicism truly is a hereditary disease.

.

Felt this episode on a personal level although I wasn’t “raised” in the Catholic Church. My sister and I were forced by our parents into catechism and confirmation when I was 12 and she was 16. I think because we were both a bit older we knew this was all fucking bullshit but it could’ve ruined me as I was hitting puberty and realizing I was gay. I probably wouldn’t have had been so indignant if I was alone with this experience. To leave this comment on a funny note. Our “final” confirmation was on Easter Sunday, the first time we received “the body and blood of Christ,” in front of a packed church. Hundreds of people. The priest was doing the ritual for 7 of us. My sister was the last one to receive the wine. She chugged that entire fucking goblet of wine with gasps from the audience. She’s still that same “fuck your bullshit” person today. Our parents didn’t make us go back to church after that unless we wanted to lol I got lucky.

Charles Muller

I too, in the depths of alcoholism, would drink "to punish myself". When I was first sober, I got into piercing and tattooing as a means of continuing to "debase the flesh" in a way. The pain is very much a part of the process.

Mark Murphy

Interesting as always. I think I have to thank my parents extra for being the most apathetic Catholics in the world. We're Irish and nominally Catholic, but I don't really remember them ever giving a shit or us feeling guilty in the stereotypical way. We observed the holidays and ate fish on Good Friday. We barely ever attended mass. I realise it's gauche in a Reddit kinda way, but Jesus had 1 really nasty day. Quit crying about it. Who wouldn't take that if offered? Eternity at The Right Hand of the Father is worth a day of torture; so many people are tortured and get nothing for it!

Roberto Andrés Lantadilla

Soooo is this "Paganism and the logic of metaphor pt.5"? I've just listened to those shows and it fits perfectly. Thank you, as always.

Colin Helpio

Interesting to hear you talk about the flesh being something to escape. I don't know if it's at all related but as a child sometimes I would meditate on eternity during Mass. I would sit in the pew, still and silent, and focus really hard on imagining and understanding eternal life after death. Neverending, neverending, neverending, with no escape. And I would get as close as I could to understanding it before I would ultimately feel a panic and terror that I struggle to say I have felt since. At this point I would snap myself out of my reverie. I did this a number of times.

Gretchen Cleaners

Excellent episode. As someone raised Catholic, I can't stress how spot on you are about its implications and psychological effects. You are seriously the Michael Jordan of hermeneutics. There is just one thing I want to add for you or anyone who cares...there are streams of Catholicism that compeletely reject the gnostic interpretation of the body. Meister Eckhart is the example that comes to mind but there is a long line of Christian Mystics you could also cite (I should also that, to validate your point, Meister Eckhart was charged for heresy by the Catholic Church). Its obviously alot to unpack on a patreon comment, but the short version is that the body contains god (not the mind, or the soul, or whatever) and that, if we are to engage with God, we must engage at a visceral level. Basically the zen buddhist/vipassanna idea in a Christian framework. To me, these streams seem to be getting at the pagan element you mentioned. To anyone more curious...Simon Critchleys New book on mysticism is a good start.

Gorgo

Awesome ep. I hope I can meet you and give you a hug some day bud.

Podconsoomer

I am one of those Catholics that grew up going to strip mall churches. I guess lucky for me & my sister we only went in bursts every few years lol

MirrorOooMirror

Dear friend, I love your show for many reasons and got full blown hooked with the JFK stuff. But god damn I hate hearing you suffer through so much mental anguish, it makes me sad and angry. Why do those who display so much empathy always seem to be so tortured? I guess thats rhetorical. Makes me sick, just wish you the best and hope love and light gets to you soon and often. Thanks for sharing—and caring (ha! couldn’t help it) but seriously I thank you and wish you well. You deserve it

Dan Leyendecker

The Catholic architecture never leaves us.

Kamran Husain

Mike, buddy, I live in vermont, i’m running as an independent

Monsieur Choc

I wish I could find that coptic bible website, it sounds fascinating.

Hemlock

+1 for the Knox/Fagles version however I found the Shapiro translation more beautiful of Aeschylus

landscape ho

Would you please elaborate on who to avoid as far as translating the donations to PayPal? Im doing a fundraiser for my friend Mohammed, and he is having trouble setting up a PayPal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Andy

Shiv

The overwhelming urge to troll MSJ with tradcath shitposts

Abigail Butcher

Have been wrestling with the desire to convert for nearly a decade. What you shared was quite damning. I am at a loss.

Jack

Thank you for sharing Michael. Raised Jewish, only as an adult hearing the experience of people raised Catholic (I was raised in a very catholic part of US) did I even begin to see how bad it can fuck people up. I certainly got some propaganda but my parents are not particularly zionist and I know Jews who got indoctrinated much more severely. As for the "Old Testament" (Jews do find this amusing) i was profoundly changed reading more radical interpretations of some of the stories. Daniel Quinn's interpretation of Genesis in Ishmael as he first one, followed quickly by Fredy Perlman's Exodus in AHAL. As for Orpheus and Dionysius and some others mentioned, I read The Flowering Wand by Sophie Strand recently. I highly recommend that book. P.S. I finally have some momentum reading GR with a guide and loving it. I been going back through and listening to some of the episodes and getting a lot more out of them. Thank you as always.

Jack

In The Emerald podcast episode War and Ritual Ecstasy where he goes deep into the bleeding thing. Its one of my fav podcast episodes ever.

Joshua P. Kelly

absolute behemoth of an episode. thank you for sharing, a lot really resonated growing up in both the irish & polish catholic traditions. we are so lucky to have yer incredible insight & ability to discuss such complicated theories in such a tangible way. 🫡🫡

Salt M. Bank

Being raised Catholic, I deeply resonated with this episode. The part about monolatry was also quite good, and was very similar to what I learned in my (non-catholic) comparative religions class. For those who are curious,I can add in the following what I recall from the class. I don’t remember what scholars were cited, so pardon the anecdotal nature of this analysis: The scattered ancient Judaic tribes indeed each had their own resident deities they worshipped. These tribes believed in monolatry, thus the aforementioned bit about god being a ‘jealous god. As these tribes would sometimes come into conflict with one another, and over so many centuries, the conquering tribes would fold in the conquered tribes’ deities and customs. Thus we see in the text this detritus of a sort of haphazard pantheon, and see references to both a Yahweh and an El. Growing up catholic I was simply told that these were multiple names for the same deity, but Yahweh and El are indeed distinct deities. The name Elohim is also mentioned, which translates roughly to council or group or family of Els or gods. Beyond individual ‘Gods’ too, we can see evidence within the bible of separate religious perspectives. Growing up catholic, I was under the impression that that a book such as say “Genesis” was this singularly curated story. However, when we look more closely at Genesis, we see at least two separate creation stories. One is the story of how God created the world in seven days, and one is the creation of Adam and Eve. Even before you get to the fact that these two accounts contradict each other, when you read that chapter you can plainly see how abruptly the one story smash cuts to the other. They’re separate stories from separate eras or areas, they got mashed together far later.


Tyson Settle

This is the best episode, and I've been listening since number 1.

Internet Alias

I think I went to the same "catholic fascist preperatory academy." I was lucky enough to get kicked out my junior year though lol

Brendan Palangio

Ooof, as a former altar boy, yeah that hits. Great as always.

Joel Blackstock

This is a beautiful essay Michael. You have such a violent gentleness and a gentle violence in a way that you talk about anthropology and phenomenology it moves me to tears sometimes. I hate Dawkins idea of religion as a viral meme but I think that the metaphor of that is true in the way you're describing here. The real religions of the world wrap themselves around your brain STEM like an incipient worm and color cognition, metaphor, and reflection at the source forever and ever. There are infinity novels and movies where the conquistador or the mafiosa or the contract killer or whoomever that is devoutly Catholic talks to the priest of genuine faith about the inevitability of guilt and violence and they disagree but are speaking the same language and I think that's what you're pointing out here. I'm curious if you have a take on how the same kind of thing you're describing can also make violence and guilt from being the abuse or exploiter seem like something that is the point or should not be avoided in the secular world through a Catholic lens. You see that baked into certain cultures. I didn't get my thoughts together in time for your past couple episodes but when you pointed out that rationalism is just saying that a system of order plays by its own rules that was one of the most profound things I've ever heard. It helped me frame a whole lot of things that I was trying to get my head around for a part of my book that I couldn't quite get a through line in. was it you who mentioned either in response to me on here or in an episode Theodore Porter? You're one of three people who may have said something like that and I can't remember where it came from. anyway I thought that was going to be unrelated but Porter's idea that objectivity is this pseudo possible "perspective from nowhere" But that we should have a more universal subjectivity that is self-correcting is sort of the perspective that you take in this episode. perennial philosophy is probably one of the most objective phenomenon out there It's just that we have to arrive at that objectivity through a subjective lens. The way that you write this is kind of an example of that and that you're not making an argument for something you believe you're just making an argument for things that are universally true.

This is Pharmacist

Fortunately for me my Mom tried too little to late to get me into the church. My grandmother was intensely Irish catholic and raised my aunts and uncles and mom in the Catholic Church including the private school. The entirely of her personality was built on it. However frail it was, she spent most of her waking hours just glassy eyed about Jesus and prayed so many hours in a waking day. Alzheimer's compounded her obsession with children and how unsafe it was to be a child, terrifying me. And how the church and the Pope and Jesus are always bigger and omnipresent. I'm old, so John Paul was still the Pope. And to this day is still have no idea why the Pope was so fucking important to her. After my lived experience I sorta question, damn maybe there is some validity to the Pope as Antichrist. Ha, she (and my grandfather was converted catholic so technically we can throw him into the story) had the picture of Jesus with the eyes that follow you. I would walk side to side in the room alone until I got freaked out , kinda as entertainment!

sansheriff

Thanks so much for this one msj. Hits close

Ninety

Kinda want to give you a hug after this one lol

Pigeon

At long last, thank you for revealing the True Name of G*D: J*SH

Wooobie

I remember when Oprah said "The bible says that God is a jealous god... and i thought, what? is he jealous of me?"

DeadPrince

I shared the QR and donated. I don’t often think about Jesus. But seeing what’s happening in Gaza does help me understand what would motivate someone to will their own death to save others.

Sebastian Moller

Grew up in a lapsed catholic family, my grandfather ensured I got baptized, but the church refused to baptize my little sister since we weren’t showing up. She got baptized Presbyterian, so we’ve always had our own little sectarian Troubles at home.

Bored at Work

Issa =Jesus who was a prophet in Islam. Enjoyed the etymology explination from your pov. In Islam, self harm was a strong sin, including all 'vices'. Repent but dont punish yourself but suffering was still a type of martyrdom as long as you were suffering for what is considered right. I did the cutting thing too. That and eating disorders, seems to be a coping mechanism for people who have no other control over their bodies and souls. The way you described Jesus in every room is similar but different. Abstractly, God knows all but the angels and djinn recording all sins and being absolute mean girls haunts me. I still say the prayer/phrase/spell/whatever to keep the jinn from watching me pee when I enter a bathroom and I still freak out if I'm playing a song that mentions god in the bathroom. I still say phrases to keep from basically jinxing myself when I say certain things or hope for certain things. I get where your coming from. My mom converted but I gew up in it and she's still like picking the parts she likes where I was traumatized. She doesn't understand why I'm an apostate... End trama dump lol

Aodhan

Does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?

Noah Barlow

I'm still midway through and i dont know if youd disagree completely, but my experience growing up mormon sounds really similar to the feel of your Catholic upbringing--the guilt and self-flaggelation, the weird perspective of the Jews as our forbears who wouldn't accept the new testament, but they took it to one more exponent where all other christian sects wouldnt accept the New New testament, the BOM. Unfortunately mormonism has none of the good aesthetics except for a few temples where they popped off.

Escheloned Confusions

And one time I got hard at Sun Coast video looking at a novelty t-shirt of Stewie Griffin, oh Lord, and I thought to myself, to confess the sin of homosexuality or pedophilia does it not matter because Stewie's presentation is so far removed from that of an actual child

Jaime Christley

Dunno if you'll see replies at this late date but I just want it on record that this episode ripped my face off. Also, there was a good 10-minute stretch where I somehow got mixed up and thought "Holy SHIT, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in New Orleans, it all fits!" I'm not proud of that, but I'm big enough to admit it.

James Aydelotte

Re: self mutilation- “…some of that was likely neurochemical- but was definitely Catholic.” - I have never laughed at the subject of cutting or self harm before… damn that was funny. I too understand this catharsis of inducing pain in one’s own body- but I am not Catholic- I am a pagan by upbringing… and bipolar- so I get it. But damn that was a good line

Swimaroo

My mom put me in catholic school in 3rd grad to protect me from my father - let's say public schools apparently did not heed court orders in the same way as Nuns in the 90s. This had the unintended consequence of making me Catholic. On a fundamental level, it has made me very different from my Birkenstock Lutheran family. I never got caught for lying about being allergic to lemons so I could get a whole apple instead of having to eat any of the gross sliced up ones.

Kamil Prusakowski

I was raised catholic in Poland. Your description is very fitting in general (there is even a popular Lent song here that goes literally "it's not the nails that have hurt you but my sin" lol) but I was never prone to that self-flagellating aspect of catholicism. I was an altar boy and a part of youth catholic group. Somehow I took very seriously the "god loves us" part and very early assumed that the eternal damnation thing must be a bs and started to believe in apokastasis already as a child. What killed remnants of my faith later on in high school was inability to find viable theodicy which ended up in existential crisis, then I went full on apophatic with John of the Cross and Ekhart which led me to Chan Buddhism when I realized that it's basically the same as mystical Christianity but much more subtle and rich (for sure Christian misticism would be more on point if it wasn't as persecuted by the Church). But I still feel catholic because I'm addicted to that mix of the beauty of ritual, universalism, vitality of the pagan aspects, this superposition of unity and crazy richness and diversity. For me catholicism is Joyce, Fellini, Sorrentino, etc. I love Mass but absolutely despise typical catholic homily. There should be a Catholic version of Jewish reconstructionism