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D r a g n e t
FLOYDIAN ANALYSIS
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This Rock
Volume 10, Number 1
 January 1999 
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Looking for some of the ol' time anti-religion? Look no further than a group called Internet Infidels, which has a web site at www.infidels.org. Among its many offerings is the text of a 1932 monograph called Mistakes of Jesus. The author is William Floyd, identified as the author also of Social Progress People vs. Wall Street, and Our Gods on Trial. His monograph was distributed originally by the Freethought Press Association, and it has been resurrected (you will excuse the expression) by today's atheists.
Mr. Floyd says that "the tradition regarding Jesus is so glamorous that it is difficult to review his life and character with an unbiased mind. While Fundamentalists and Modernists differ regarding the divinity of Christ, all Christians and many non-Christians still cling to preconceived notions of the perfection of Jesus. He alone among all men is revered as all-loving, omniscient, faultless-an unparalleled model for mankind . . . Any insinuation of error on his part is deemed a blasphemy . . . An attempt to disparage his worth is denounced as bad taste."
Bad taste it may be, but bad logic it certainly is, as Mr. Floyd himself demonstrates through the remainder of his monograph. Let's look at some of his arguments, which have been posted at the Internet Infidels site precisely because his present-day heirs think the arguments are convincing.
1. Jesus' "prophecy regarding his entombment was inaccurate, for he was only two nights and one day in the heart of the earth, from Friday night to Sunday morning." True, that's how long he was entombed, but the prophecy of three days was fulfilled because Jesus, as a Jew, used the Jewish way of counting. Any part of a day counted as a day: part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday tallies to three days, by the ancient reckoning. Mr. Floyd erred in trying to apply a twentieth-century counting method to a first-century milieu.
2. Mr. Floyd claims that Jesus was unclear when he said, "1 thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes" (Matt. 11:25) and "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" (Mark 10: 15). "This train of thought," insists Mr. Floyd, "implies that education is of no importance where belief is concerned." Perhaps Mr. Floyd considered himself well educated. Maybe he was, but he missed the point. Our Lord wasn't discounting education. He was saying that "smarts" isn't what it takes-it takes the virtue of faith. Some educated people have it, some don't.
3. "After enumerating the many hardships that must be endured by his followers, Jesus contradicted himself by saying, 'For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light'" (Matt. 11:30). For an educated man, Mr. Floyd seems particularly thick. There is no contradiction here. Our Lord explains that even hardships will be found bearable by those who follow him faithfully; the converse is that even small troubles will do in those without faith. We see this confirmed everyday in our observations of those around us.
4. The parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16) bothers Mr. Floyd. He thinks it unfair that our Lord approved of paying someone who worked one hour the same as someone who worked all day. "This parable may be a comfort to autocratic employers, sustaining them in their determination to dominate labor, but the principles enunciated are lacking in social vision. Equal pay for unequal work is approved. . . . Jesus taught that the workers were wrong in demanding justice, that the employer was justified in acting erratically, as the money paid was his." Again, Mr. Floyd misconstrues the text. The first laborers hired, those who worked all day, were paid the prevailing wage. No one would have complained about that-fair pay for fair work. Later laborers were given a bonus; the owner of the vineyard paid them superabundantly, really making a gift to them. The last hired got a full day's pay for only one hour of work. The gift to them did not transform the pay given to the first hired into an unjust wage. Each worker was treated justly, and all but the first hired were treated to an undeserved bonus. Of course, the parable wasn't about labor-management relations anyway, and Mr. Floyd is wrong to try to read such concerns into it. But, even taken on his terms, the parable displays no injustice to workers. It is not an injustice to give some people what they are owed while giving freebies to others.
5. Writing in an aside, Mr. Floyd asserts that Jesus, "apprenticed to his father in his youth, never did any practical work so far as we know. He lived on the charity of others, setting an example that would bring trouble to anyone who followed in his train. If anything, he was an agitator, a peripatetic propagandist, teaching what he believed right but not working to support himself and therefore not being a good example for the workaday world today." Mr. Floyd is far out on a limb with this one. If Jesus had been "apprenticed to his father in his youth," the sensible deduction is that he became, like Joseph, a carpenter and worked in carpentry. His public ministry didn't begin until at least his thirtieth year. Nowadays some young adults may get by without ever having to do real work, but in those days a man pushing thirty already would have been working, in the family business or elsewhere, for better than twenty years. What would need to be explained, as something out of the ordinary, is how a fellow from a poor family could get by for thirty years without working. Mr. Floyd makes no effort to give such an explanation.
6. "Many Christians value Jesus most for his healing powers," says Mr. Floyd, "but Jesus looked upon disease almost as he did upon demoniacal possession, as something evil that could be cast out. 'But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house' (Matt. 9:6). There was confusion in his mind between sin and sickness." No, there is confusion in Mr. Floyd's mind about Jesus' mind. Jesus knew full well the distinction between the two and the origin of the latter from the former (especially from Adam's sin).
7. A last example: "Jesus permitted divorce for one cause," adultery. Mr. Floyd relies on Matthew 5:31-32, and, as usual, he misconstrues the passage. The underlying Greek work is porneia, which refers not to adultery (there is another word in Greek for that) but to an immoral relationship-what today would be called "living together." If a man and woman were "living together" as if they were married when in fact they weren't, then they could "divorce" one another and marry others because they weren't really married in the first place. Their subsequent marriages would be their first marriages. Thus, our Lord's complete condemnation of divorce, given elsewhere in the Gospels, is not contradicted.
WIlliam Floyd belonged to the old school of self-styled Freethinkers. From the titles they give themselves, and from the honors they heap upon reason as opposed to faith, one would expect more from such writers. But Mr. Floyd and all the others disappoint. When they don't seem sophomoric in their arguments, they seem crabbed. They so desperately wish to oppose Christianity and are so earnest in their denials that it's difficult not to feel kindly toward them. They are so unconvincing, except to themselves, that they are almost endearing. Almost.
Maybe Emanuele Luzzati can talk some sense into those who cling to the notion that Catholics worship statues. Mr. Luzatti, an artist, is the creator of a baby Jesus statue swiped from a nativity scene in the northern Italy town of Turin during Christmas week. Following the theft a photo and note were sent to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The photo showed the stolen statue with two front pages of the previous day's newspapers in its hand, a common practice in ransom demands meant to show the victim is still alive and in captivity at the time the photo is taken. "Free Silvano now or Jesus is dead!" read the note.
Silvano Pelissero was arrested last spring after he and several other anarchists allegedly attempted to sabotage a high-speed train.
It's unclear whether the perpetrators actually were Mr. Pelissero's compatriots, since anarchists are not renowned for their sense of humor. Nevertheless, Mr. Luzzati, according to an Associated Press wire report, urged that the "anarchists'" demands be ignored. "Sure, they've taken a symbol," he said. "But we're only talking about a piece of wood."
Perhaps taking their lead from the anarchists, European feminists apparently also engaged in holiday statue-napping. According to the Belga news agency, in the days following Christmas nine statues of St. Joseph were stolen from nativity scenes throughout Belgium and, in a note left behind in some locations, the "previously unknown" Association for Consciously Single Mothers (different, apparently, from the Unconsciously Single Mothers) took responsibility. The group's note called for the right to "self-determination (for women), to artificial insemination, to voluntary motherhood, and to . . . immaculate conception." The dig at Mary is not unexpected, but it seems a little naive to demand three "rights" that are already universally allowed in the Western world. The group's maternal side got the better of them, though: All the statues were returned shortly-some a little worse for the wear, although a Fr. Michiel Declercq of Deerlijk said there was no "deliberate vandalism."
"Is the Human Species a Cancer on the Planet?" In a symposium of this name presented at the American Anthropological Association's national convention held last December 2-6 in Philadelphia, symposium organizer Dr. Warren Hern said he noticed nearly a decade ago that "aerial and satellite views of urban centers taken over a period of years bore a striking similarity to images of cancerous tissue (particularly melanoma) invading the healthy surrounding tissue." According to a report by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, Dr. Hern argued that "in many parts of the world the increase in human numbers is rapid and uncontrolled, that it invades and destroys habitats, and that by killing off many species it reduces the differentiation of nature. All of these features are characteristics of cancerous tumors." There may have been a bit of self-interest in Dr. Hern's Malthusian presentation: He is one of Colorado's biggest abortionists.
Also on the panel was Dr. Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who co-authored with Dr. James Lovelock the "Gaia Hypothesis," named after the Greek goddess who drew forth the living world from chaos. This theory, first espoused two decades ago by Dr. Lovelock, says the earth itself is a living organism that deploys its own global feedback mechanisms to maintain an environment hospitable to life. (The theory has been enthusiastically cleaved to by radical environmentalists and New Agers who worship the earth as the goddess Gaia.) "For millions of years the earth got along without human beings," Dr. Margulis maintained, "and it will do so again. The only question is the nature of the human demise that has already begun."
These theories are not new; what is new is that a well-respected scientific body like the American anthropologists would air them. As recently as four years ago a symposium of the same name was rejected by a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Unfortunately, these seemingly scientific assertions play into the long-time call of some environmentalists for a "culling" of the human race. A group calling itself Negative Population Growth argues that the United States must reduce its population by 120 million people. And around the same time as the anthropologists' convention, U.S. billionaire Ted Turner was calling for a worldwide one-child policy similar to China's, whose government forces conformity through forced abortion and coercive sterilization. Last year Mr. Turner pledged $1 billion for United Nations population control programs.
It's even shorter if you skip the Confiteor . . . An article on California's new first lady, Sharon Davis, appearing in the January 4 San Diego Union-Tribune included this information: "The Davises share strong religious convictions. Although she was raised Episcopalian, Sharon Davis is credited with bringing her husband back to his Catholic roots. Even on the question of religion, there was a hint of pragmatism when the Davises decided which path to follow. They chose Catholicism for a variety of reasons, but what she talked the most about in the interview was that the services are more succinct. A Mass lasts about 45 minutes, she said, while an Episcopal service takes up about an hour and a half."
Sharon Davis's Democrat husband, Gray, sworn in January 4 as California governor, has long been a strong supporter of the right to abortion in all forms, including partial-birth abortion. "To those who would seek to deny a woman her right to choose," Mr. Davis said in his inaugural address, "let me offer this suggestion: Don't waste the legislature's time trying to pass bills restricting women's constitutional rights. It simply will not happen on my watch."
Just in time for Christmas-we've found we can never plan too far ahead-Heartbeats has come into our hands. A "ministry" of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary in Cleveland, Ohio, Heartbeats is a 72-page, color catalogue of religious and inspirational art prints, photography, cards, jewelry, crafts, and music designed not to offend (no mention of God the Father) but to empower women and to reconnect with nature and the earth. We've already dog-eared our favorites:
The "Woman Prayer" card is "based on the prayer of Mary, woman of all women" (that would be the Magnificat): "My soul magnifies the Word, and my spirit rejoices in God who loves me. For this God, Who Is, has done great things for me. My heart and my body give breath to the world. My spirit, courageous, gives meaning to hope. . ." It continues but there's no mention of scattering the proud or putting down the mighty or sending the rich empty away. No, the God of the Woman's Prayer "forgives when I fall, welcomes my efforts, heals deepest pain," and "gives glory to my life."
From the "multicultural wisdom" section those familiar with the traditional Irish blessing ("May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, and may the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand") may be a bit surprised at the "Irish Blessing" card: "May you be true to your strong foundation / of a simple people / in love with life / in love with God / in love with the earth / the good green earth. . ." It goes on but God is not mentioned again.
Ingenious too that the suitable-for-framing blessings for a young woman, a young man, and a marriage contain no mention of God. Our favorite stanza from the "Blessing for a Young Woman": "May your journey / be filled with values / that are rooted / in the wisdom of ages. . ."
There's such a plethora of art and photography celebrating nature we just couldn't make up our minds, though we're partial to the "Celebrate the Universe Series" (p. 15) since the photos of clouds and flowers each comes with the bonus of a pithy phrase ("I breathe in the universe and celebrate the now").
We turned past the "Images of God" cards (which include Ruah and Rahamin, or Compassion) to get to the music: albums by Colleen Fulmer (Dancing Sophia's Dance: Original Songs Exploring & Celebrating the Great WisdomSophia Tradition) (p. 65) and Kathy Quigley, S.C. (The Call of the Unicorn) (p. 67). Judging by some of its song titles-"Blessing the Divine Womb," Free-Be-We-Be" - Fulmer's album looks to be the one most likely to find its way into some loved one's stocking come Christmas.
There probably won't be grass skirts and hollowed-out coconuts involved, but Hawaii's bishop has allowed native Hawaiian "sacred gestures" to be included in certain special liturgies. Last year the Vatican had banned the practice after complaints while it studied the matter, but in January Bishop Francis DiLorenzo published new guidelines reinstating the gestures. Native dancers, who use their hands, body, and feet to tell a story, had been allowed during special Masses such as First Communions, weddings, and funerals.
"Sacred gesture is a way for Pacific Islanders, Asians, and those who have embraced the culture to worship as baptized Catholics," Bishop DiLorenzo was quoted by Catholic World News as saying. "For many their cultural and religious experience are interwoven."
Though liturgical dance has been forbidden in the United States (see page 19, this issue), the Vatican has allowed it in countries where "dancing is still reflective of religious values and becomes a clear manifestation of them" (Religious Dance, An Expression of Spiritual Joy (Notitiae II [1975] 202-205, Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship). Including, apparently, at least part of the United States.
Over the last six months we've received many letters, e-mails, and phone calls objecting to an editor's reply to a letter in our June 1998 issue. The letter concerned Pope John Paul II's 1984 consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Donald P. Keating of Swansboro, North Carolina, cited the writings of Fr. Stefano Gobbi, who claims to have received interior locutions of the Blessed Virgin Mary from 1973 to 1997. These messages are collected in the book To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, the core text of Fr. Gobbi's group, the Marian Movement of Priests (MMP). "In 1987," wrote Donald Keating, "our Lady said, via Fr. Gobbi, that the consecration was not properly done."
Our reply pointed out that Lucia (the last survivor of the three Fatima children), Fr. Robert Fox (a long-time leader of Our Lady of Fatima devotion), and John Paul II all agree the consecration took place properly. "As for Fr. Gobbi," it said, "the Vatican has declared that his 'locutions' are to be understood as merely his private meditations and not as having any supernatural source-a polite way of saying they're not authentic."
The supporters of MMP who have contacted us maintain, sometimes heatedly, that the Vatican has not made an official pronouncement on Fr. Gobbi's interior locutions. Then, in an "Official Statement" dated October 7, 1998, Fr. Albert G. Roux, national director of the MMP for the United States, wrote: "Catholic publications, including This Rock magazine from the organization Catholic Answers, have also stated in their editorials that an official pronouncement has been rendered. Yet, none of them can produce any official documents . . . The lack of factually based information is evidenced by the editor of This Rock magazine who refers to the messages as 'Fr. Gobbi's visions'! (Fr. Gobbi has never claimed he had visions, but interior locutions . . .)"
Fr. Roux goes on to say: "Mary's archenemy is not going to allow her to crush his head without putting up a fight. He will use any and all means within his power to destroy her Movement and her work . . . Satan oftentimes uses important and credible people to achieve his pernicious goals and the destruction of all forces opposed to his plans."
A couple of points here.
First, our comment that "the Vatican has declared that his 'locutions' are to be understood as merely his private meditations" could be misleading; " members of the Vatican have advised" is more accurate. For instance:
In response to a letter inquiring about the MMP, Archbishop Pio Laghi (Vatican pro-nuncio to the U.S., 1984-1990) wrote, "Responsible authorities have found the theological foundation of this movement to be weak. The general orientation" [of To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons] " . . . and some inadequate expressions or excessive sentimentalism may be an obstacle to sound Marian devotion. In a word, the book is not in line with the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus."
Archbishop Agostino Cacciavillan (Laghi's successor as U.S. pro-nuncio, 1990-1998) said in 1994: "As to the writings of Fr. Gobbi, competent authorities have advised that they are not the words of our Blessed Mother, but his private meditations for which he assumes all the theological, spiritual, and pastoral responsibility."
As for a third Vatican official, here's an excerpt from Fr. Roux's aforementioned "Official Statement": "Prior to the publishing of the new Italian edition of the book To the Priest, Our Beloved Lady’s Sons, the Secretary from the CDF [presumably Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, the man second to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger], in a personal letter to Fr. Gobbi, requested and advised that he should not claim in the book's introduction that these messages are from the Blessed Mother, but rather that they are the product of his own personal meditation. In a spirit of submission and obedience, Fr. Gobbi accepted to do what the Secretary requested; however, to this day he still unequivocally affirms and continues to maintain, as does his Spiritual Director, that he receives these messages from the Mother of God . . . Fr. Gobbi adds that to say otherwise would be an absolute falsehood!"
It seems to us Fr. Gobbi cannot have it both ways: Either what he wrote is true (the locutions are the product of his own personal meditation) and what he says is untrue (he receives these messages from the Mother of God), or vice versa.
The second point: Reference was never made in This Rock to Fr. Gobbi's "visions." Fr. Roux is referring to a post on the "Expert's Forum" section of EWTN's website. On August 3, 1998, responding to an e-mail from someone asking whether he should "support what [Fr. Gobbi has written in his book," Catholic Answers president Karl Keating replied: "Even if you believe Fr. Gobbi's ideas to be correct, whatever their origin may be, you are under no obligation to 'support' them. Even if they really were supernatural visions, you would still not have to 'support' them. Private revelations are binding only on the person to whom they are given, never on the Church as a whole." The italics are added to emphasize the point he was making: Even if Fr. Gobbi were seeing the Virgin Mary and not just hearing her, one wouldn't have to "support" his private revelation.
From our own experience, the ranks of the MMP swell with faithful and prayerful Catholics. Still, there are elements of Fr. Gobbi's interior locutions that equally faithful Catholics who are not MMP members might find troubling, such as the apocalyptic prophesies attributed to Mary. Message #389 in To the Priest, Our Beloved Lady's Sons, dated September 18, 1988, set a ten-year time frame for the fulfillment of a number of events that have not taken place, including the completion of the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:21, Rev.
7: 14), the manifestation of the Mystery of Iniquity (2 Thess. 2:7), and the occurrence of "all the secrets which I have revealed to some of my children" (a reference to the "secrets" of apparitions such as La Salette and Fatima) and "all events which have been foretold to you by me will take place."
It is troubling too that MMP representatives such as Fr. Roux are so vociferous in attacking fellow Catholics - even, for the sake of argument, those mistaken in their assertions.
In Spanish the word for "pope" is "papa." So is the word for "potato." That made it a natural tie-in for the Mexican potato chip company Sabritas to help raise funds for the Pope's visit to Mexico City in January. Commemorative bags of its chips featured photos of the Holy Father and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Company spokesman Hector Fernandez assured beforehand that "the Holy Father will not be linked to the advertising campaign nor will he go out dressed as a potato chip."
Another natural tie-in no one mentioned: Over the years potato chips have been reported found in likenesses of our Lady, our Lord, and even Mother Teresa.
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