As can be gathered by one of their initial exchanges, my father and Father O'Leary had actually met some time ago . . .

Just who is Fr. O'Leary?

Father O'Leary's blog links to an interview in Buddhist Christian Studies which opens with the following bio:

Impressed yet? -- Father O'Leary initially struck me as being very well-read and well-schooled in classical and modern literature, philosophy and theology (with an obvious fondness for Rahner, Kung, Teilhard, Schillebeecx, Barth and Luther). That he is well-educated priest is a simple fact -- one that is conveyed time and time again by the frequent peppering of his comments with perpetual recitations of authors, texts and obscure references.

Upon further exposure, I was inclined to wonder if all this bookishness might have gotten to his head and become somewhat debilitating to his ministry as a priest in the Catholic Church. Judging by his reception on my father's blog I was not the first to have such an impression.

Perusing his comments at The Pertinacious Papist, one may learn that Father O'Leary

• positions himself to the left of America magazine ("America is a too conservative mag for my tastes and its title is idolatrous")

• believes that the Church should abandon its old-fashioned prohibition on homosexual acts ["Churches should be opening a dialogue and learning more about [homosexuality], rather than going into tantrums about ill-thought-out doctrines"]

• harbors a strong disgust for Opus Dei ["their disproportionate flourishing is a direct result of the Vatican's suppression of open discussion and democratic participation. Once again the Vatican finds itself in bed with fascism"]

• believes that Fatima was a case of childish delusion: "The kids at Fatima saw hell because that is what their parents had filled their little imaginations with. . . . The idea that the shepherd kids had a prediction about the Turk's attempted assassination of John Paul II is ludicrous, and it is a sad commentary on the intellectual level of the Vatican today that both JP2 and Ratzinger took it so seriously."

• takes a grim view of John Paul II's legacy: "The rage of Catholic women and of Catholic gays against JP2's obtuseness, which he transmitted successfully by unscrupulous demagogery and repression, is a prophetic rage that springs from the depths of the sensus fidelium. Dr Blosser does not want to hear this (hence my imminent expulsion from his site!) but is it the mighty roar of the Holy Spirit!"

• and has a tendency to lapse into long spurts of Latin, as if to demonstrate his linguistic prowess (intimidating fellow readers and with the inevitable result of short-circuiting the conversation).

Browsing further the heated-yet-engaging exchanges between O'Leary and Dr. Blosser's commentariat, one may get a sense of the Father's opinion on a host of pertinent theological issues:

• liberation theology (". . . the last major effort to reconnect church teaching with the agonies of mankind -- working on the inspired lead of Paul VI in Populorum Progression, Evangelium Nuntiandi and Octagesima Adveniens (texts buried in oblivion in the Wojtyla-Ratzinger pontificate) -- and was crushed on the basis of picayune arguments about the alterity of theology and politics, the danger of earthly utopias, and the fearful venom of Marxism. Now the only way the church connects with the world is by lambasting an alleged Culture of Death." - Joe O'Leary | 05.12.05 - 5:49 am | Source

• the historicity of the Resurrection: ". . . The empty tomb story has ANGELS involved in all four versions, and the presence of Angels is usually an indication of non-historicity. The best historical evidence of the resurrection concerns the appearances (listed in 1 Cor 15 by the last eye witness), but the narratives in the last chapters of the four gospels are full of legendary or symbolic matter. This is all very well known . . . Joe O'Leary | 05.13.05 - 1:48 pm | Source

• the reality of the heavenly and demonic realms: ""Hell, heaven, angels, devils -- historically all this scenario comes from Zoroastrianism and entered Jewish thinking only shortly before the time of Jesus. The "messengers" (angeloi) of the Old Testament are not angels in the Persian sense. Persian also is the time scheme of a being who existed from the beginning, appears at the centre of history, and comes again at the end. The idea of salvation and of the manner in which Christ is a savior obviously has to be radically rethought in our cultural context, in which such pictorial. representations carry little conviction. Joe O'Leary | 06.14.05 - 11:28 pm | Source

• the miracles of Our Lord: ". . . The word "miracle" is not a biblical word -- the Bible talks of signs and wonders and is more interested in their prophetic or revelatory significance than in their contradiction of the laws of nature. St. Augustine on miracles comes close to saying that they are part of natural process. Magic stunts have no place in adult Christianity; the sign of Cana I take to be a symbolic narrative -- the water of the old dispensation yielding to the wine of the new -- rather than a literal account of carbon atoms being created ex nihilo. Joe O'Leary | 06.17.05 - 1:26 am | Source

• and the glory-days (daze?) of Vatican II ". . . The blaze of inspiration that befell me when I read Teilhard, Le Milieu Divin, as an eighteen year old, making me pace the boards of the Irish College, Paris, with delighted excitement; the joy of hearing Rahner lecture in Maynooth, radiating like the sun; the challenge of Schillebeeckx's subtle and comprehensive vision, at a seminar in Leiden in 1974; all of that seems to have disappeared to be replaced by a minute parcelling out, a parcimonious rationing of divine grace by bookish clerks who are completely unable to give a sense of the majestic working of the spirit of God in creation and salvation. The evolutionary schema within which Teilhard and Rahner rethought Christology is even scoffed at, instead of being further developed, and these cautious bureaucrats rehearse instead the old, tired theologoumena of our Tridentine childhood. And the old dreary names of warped reactionaries are trotted out again and again -- Schall, Hardon, Kelly, Grisez, Schaeffer -- along with old-fashioned fuddy-duddies like Chesterton, Belloc, CS Lewis, Fulton Sheen. All of this is the narcosis of Catholicism, its hibernation. I note that Ernesto Cardenal says the election of Ratzinger is "fatal" for the Church, but perhaps that Spanish word translates better into English as 'awful'." Joe O'Leary | 06.15.05 - 9:24 am | Source

O'Leary vs. The Neo-Caths

Rise of the Neo-Caths [Update Now absent from his blog, but reproduced here in full] is one of Fr. O'Leary's groundbreaking posts to his blog, "Spirit of Vatican II", taking a wild and undiscriminating swipe at St. Blog's Parish and the "John Paul II Generation":

One has only to read these bloggers to note the differences of tone, style and content, although I count myself duly privileged to be lumped together with the likes of such gifted bloggers as Jimmy Akin, Oswald Sobrino and Amy Welborn. (I'm sure my father is likewise thrilled to no end for his placement with fellow philosophy professor Peter Kreeft).

What then, are the alleged traits that bind this diverse group of bloggers together under Fr. O'Leary's heaping criticism?

• That we "tend to sexual puritanism . . . vocal advocates and practitioners of a strictly-interpreted concept of sexual fidelity, with a strong emphasis on procreative sexuality";
• that we engage in " combative apologetics . . . [devoting] treasures of ingenuity to proving that the Church has never changed her teaching on anything -- not on usury, slavery, torture, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and above all not on sexual matters" (what's this preoccupation with sex?);
• that we are "'young fogeys' -- [taking] a delight in sporting old-fashioned references, such as Chesterton, Belloc, C.S. Lewis, Garrigou-Lagrange . . . [yearning] for an idealized church of Pius XII, a vibrant flawless Catholicism that never was";
• that we "combine biblical and magisterial fundamentalism . . . in complete contempt of biblical scholarship and hermeneutics";
• that we are "ill at ease with modernity . . . bewail confusion and uncertainty and call for a firm voice of authority to put an end to it";
• that we are "ideological and political rightists [whose] papolatry commonly goes hand in hand with Busholatry"

Fr. O'Leary paints with a broad brush, and his wild strokes have already merited comments from Dale Price (Dyspeptic Mutterings) and responsory posts from Amy Giglio aka. R.C. Mommy; a New Englander blogging under the name of "Concerned Catholic", and Greg @ Vita Brivis.

Meanwhile, neo-Cath prodigy Apolonio Later III has penned a two-part substantial response -- Part I; Part II -- to Fr. O'Leary's article Dogma and Religious Pluralism (Australian E-Journal of Theology Issue 4, Feb. 2005). (See O'Leary's blog for a response).

What is one to make of Fr. O'Leary? -- Is he the voice of the future? The real and genuine "spirit of Vatican II"? Are his postings that of a prophet, crying out in the wilderness?

I know a few "progressive" Catholic bloggers who might answer in the affirmative, while others would probably consider him something of a curiousity, the very epitomy of intellectual hubris and disgruntled liberalism, an endangered species floundering in the wake of a thriving and vibrant renewal of orthodoxy.

In any case, I find him rather entertaining and -- despite his comparisons of John Paul II to Chairman Mao -- occasionally throught-provoking.

So permit me to close this post by exending a virtual welcome to St. Blog's Parish -- that is to say, if he can tolerate the presence of us "young fogeys." Those who are so inclined may offer a couple rounds of the rosary for the rehabilitation of his keen intellect and the spiritual welfare of his soul, bringing to mind the wisdom of Thomas A' Kempis (The Imitation of Christ):

Update!

• North Western Winds' fisking of O'Leary calls to mind an applicable passage from the book of Ecclesiastes.

• Fr. O'Leary on the Resurrection - The Pertinacious Papist responds to O'Leary's remark that "denying fundamentalist literalism in handling the Resurrection narratives is not the same as denying the Resurrection."

  See also "Fr. O'Leary's unorthodox "hot tub" Christology (Part I)" / Part II - responding to O'Leary's post "Demystifying the Incarnation".

• Tony at Catholic Pillow Fight has another good fisking:
  I remember back in June, a man I consider a friend was ordained. Our parish choir was lucky enough to be invited to the diocesan cathedral to provide the music for the ordination. At one point Fr. Kevin was asked by our Bishop: "Do you promise to obey me and all my successors"? He answered with a resounding "I do" that we could hear all the way up to the choir loft.

  I wonder if Fr. O'Leary took a vow like that, when he writes like this . . .

• A Neocatholic Strikes Back Teófilo (Theophilus) (Vivificat) — Beginning a 5-part response to Father Joseph O'Leary's The Rise of the Neocaths.

• The Holy Fool rounds up some responses to O'Leary along with some remarks of his own.

• "Is the 'spirit of Vatican II' Christian?" -- Pontifications weighs in:
  To be a theologian is to be a man or woman of the Church. It is to be a person who immerses himself in the apostolic revelation, a person who denies himself and allows his thoughts to be conformed to the mind of Christ as communicated to us in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. It is to become, in Origen’s famous words, “a man of the Church”; it is to become fully ecclesiastical. As Pope Benedict has explained: “Catholic theology is not individual reflection but thinking with the faith of the church. If you will do other things and have other ideas of what God could be or could not be, there is the freedom of the person to do it, clearly. But one should not say this is Catholic theology.”

  Read the whole thing.