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Today we continue with the theme that we started in the post titled Fr. Spadaro Wants All To Know That 2+2 Still Equals 5 At The Domus Sanctae Marthae. As we explained in that post, the genesis of this phenomenon, namely, that a member of the “leadership team” of the Francis bishopric of Rome, can make as ridiculous a statement as that, is neither laughable nor accidental. What is most likely the case is that Fr. Spadaro was emitting a signal to the aged neo-Modernists still alive that the post-conciliar revolution is still kicking.

A short digression is in order. If life in fact does imitate art, no better depiction of the Francis’ reign can be found than the farewell tour of the band Spinal Tap in the movie This is Spinal Tap. For those of my loyal readers who recall the movie, the Spadaro quote is very similar in nature to the dialogue between the movie characters Marty Di Bergi, the maker of the “mockumentary” and the band’s guitarist Nigel Tufnel, regarding the loudness dial on the band’s “magic” amp. This dialogue I present in the video above.

The reason that I am bringing this to your attention is that this exchange very succinctly captures the mindset of the TeamFrancis in general and Fr. Spadaro in particular. What is essential to understand is that Fr. Spadaro and Francis, just like Nigel Tufnel do not understand that raising the volume on the “magic” amp to 11 will not in any way affect the “quality” of their product. To be more precise, using the “magic” amp with the 11 volume level setting will not make Spinal Tap any more successful than using the FAILED neo-Modernist “magic” pseudo-philosophical sophisms that produce 2+2=5, in attracting new adherents to Francis’ Junk Theology.

Given the above, today your humble blogger will drill down into the “magical” adjective that has been used in the above paragraphs. The reason being that these two examples, namely expecting to obtain a different (better) result by turning up the sound level by the band Spinal Tap, or suspending the precepts of Natural Law in the case of Francis and the neo-Modernists are both examples of the same underlying phenomenon.

This phenomenon alluded to above is what is known as “Magical Thinking”.

As usual, we begin with a definition. “Magical Thinking” is defined as follows:

Magical thinking is a term used in anthropology and psychology, denoting the fallacious attribution of causal relationships between actions and events, with subtle differences in meaning between the two fields.

In our case, the reason why both Spinal Tap’s and Fr. Spadaro’s “reasoning” fall squarely into the “magical thinking” category is that there is no causal relationship between increasing the volume level to 11 or suspending the precepts of Natural Law and the hoped for increase in new adherents.

With respect to the latter, the magical thinking theory that best explains Fr. Spadaro and Francis is the following:

Bronisław Malinowski‘s Magic, Science and Religion (1954) discusses another type of magical thinking, in which words and sounds are thought to have the ability to directly affect the world.[11]

Literary Structuralism, anyone? (see here)

One negative side effect of magical thinking is the following:

This type of wish fulfillment thinking can result in the avoidance of talking about certain subjects (“speak of the devil and he’ll appear”), the use of euphemisms instead of certain words, or the belief that to know the “true name” of something gives one power over it, or that certain chants, prayers, or mystical phrases will bring about physical changes in the world. 

What the above text explains to a very high degree is the post-conciliar penchant for what Louie Verrecchio termed the “pseudosacral homopoetic prose”. Here is how Louie describe the genesis of this phenomenon:

The bishops who authored this sewage (Ed. note: pseudosacral homopoetic prose) are precisely the product of that roguish council (VII) wherein it was deemed expedient for churchmen to focus, not on combating the errors that threaten the citizens of this fallen world redeemed and ruled by Christ the King who reigns victorious over all things, but on entering into consultative dialogue with every miscreant that inhabits the fairytale land they invented wherein “all things should be related to man as its center and crown.” (cf Gaudium et Spes)

Notice the reference to “magical thinking”.

So the inference from Mr. Verrecchio’s assertion is that post-conciliar NUChurch is a part of the magical thinking camp.

This observation has to be considered an OBJECTIVELY CORRECT assertion.

Which leaves one very important question hanging, and that is this: why is Catholicism, as opposed to the neo-Modernist NUChurch not consigned to the magical thinking category?

The answer to this question comes from a substantive difference theory that states the following:

(Robin) Horton describes this as one of the key dissimilarities between traditional (“traditional” meaning primitive in this case) thought and Western science. He suggests that the scientific worldview is distinguished from a magical one by the scientific method and by skepticism, requiring the falsifiability of any scientific hypothesis.

And here, Horton nails the difference between magical though and critical thought.

He could just as easily be speaking about the dissimilarities between Francis’ post-conciliar NUChurch and Cardinal Burke’s Catholic Church.

We read further:

He notes that for native peoples “there is no developed awareness of alternatives to the established body of theoretical texts.”[29] (Ed note: Protestantism, shall we say?) He notes that all further differences between traditional (“traditional” meaning primitive in this case) and Western thought can be understood as a result of this factor. Because there are no alternatives in societies based on magical thought, a theory does not need to be objectively judged to be valid.

Yet on the Catholic side, the situation is diametrically different.

Just as a reminder of what constitutes “organic growth” within Catholic theology, a definition we painstakingly explained in the post titled Settled Stupidity, reads as follows:

Organic Growth: reconciliation of reason with revelation, of science with faith and of philosophy with theology, SUBJECT TO: that source of our Faith that comes from divine Revelation.

It is specifically because of this above, i.e. that the Catholic FAITH alone, is derived from two sources, that separates Catholicism from other forms of magical thinking. Specifically, the key difference that distinguishes Catholicism from any other formal or informal “religious” belief, Protestantism included, is the fact that a part of the Catholic Faith is:

“as known through “natural light of human reason from the things that are made”.

It is this aspect of Catholicism that is responsible for the INHERENT OBJECTIVITY of Catholicism.

If you dear reader recall, what drove the Patristic Fathers to recognize the objective knowledge of the Greeks and Romans as a part of the knowledge coming from God was as follows:

Christian thinkers, from the beginning, were confronted with the question: How are we to reconcile reason with revelation, science with faith, philosophy with theology? The first apologists possessed no philosophy of their own. They had to deal with a pagan world proud of its literature and its philosophy, ready at any moment to flaunt its inheritance of wisdom in the face of ignorant Christians. The apologists met the situation by a theory that was as audacious as it must have been disconcerting to the pagans. They advanced the explanation that all the wisdom of Plato and the other Greeks was due to the inspiration of the Logos; that it was God’s truth, and, therefore, could not be in contradiction with the supernatural revelation contained in the Gospels. It was a hypothesis calculated not only to silence a pagan opponent, but also to work constructively.

Concluding, what stands behind Fr. Spadaro’s statement that 2+2 can equal 5 is the notion that there is no such thing as objective truth, i.e. the Logos.

Since the post-conciliar neo-Modernists have abandoned the REALITY that objective truth exists, they have found themselves in the land of magical thinking.

And the problem with creating a “theology” based on magical thinking is that it doesn’t work.

It is this exact thing that can be read in John Lamont’s Attacks on Thomism when he writes the following text:

Neomodernism, however, on a religious level is a purely negative thesis. As a result it has no attractive force of its own, and ecclesiastical structures that fall into its grip eventually die away – a process now visible all over the world.

And it is this lack of substance (Truth) in Francis’ and Spadaro’s Junk Theology that has made the post-conciliar NUChurch just as successful as the band Spinal Tap and Nigel Tufnel “magic amp” with the volume setting of 11.