"Most zealous Catholics are not as well organized or cooperative as those in the world. One of the hardest things is to get orthodox Catholics to cooperate."
A big part of that is because orthodox are driven by principles. When one mistakenly holds up prudential elements as principles or fails to hold the proper hierarchy of goods, it's easy to get involved with initial disputes over the principles to be fought for.
Another is that orthodoxy defends truth and the structures that defend truth. It is far easier to collect a band of disparate parties to first overthrow the existing structures and then to battle on the new one. Most revolutions take that pattern. Once the establishment is overthrown there is a housecleaning amoung the revolutionary elements.
It's worth noting that the doctor that founded VOTF understood this, so he purposely never allowed a statement of principles to be created for VOTF so they would have nothing to argue about. Feminism is similar, in that feminist theology also eschews a doctrinal formulation, instead trying to emphasize subjective "experience". Though even that is contentious as one black feminist put it: "Whose experience, white woman?"
Reading this quote I cannot help but think that the Servant of God had in mind the remarkable lack of cooperation that continues to exist among the many apostolates he founded during his lifetime. These apostates, which include the Marian Catechist Apostolate, Eternal Life, the Father Hardon Media Apostolate, the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association, the Institute on Religious Life, and others, have yet to unite in any meaningful and collaborative way to make his voluminous works in various media widely available to a new generation of Catholics who desperately need them in accessible formats and attractive platforms.
This lack of collaboration is most evident in the void among the apostolates it the use of promoting Hardon's work through the new media. There are numerous examples. The Father Hardon Media Apostolate "exists to motivate the faithful to use all the means of social communications to evangelize the world and to teach the Catholic Faith." Yet the most significant means of social communication today, the internet, is embarrassingly under utilized by the Media Apostolate. The website for this apostolate, and most of the other apostolates for that matter, is static and antiquated, and there is no obvious promotion of social media to spread the Faith. Another example: The Marian Catechist Apostolate exists to form catechists who will teach the Faith, but it has not done enough to make the learning materials Hardon wrote available to younger faithful using new media. As I write the Marian Catechist Facebook page is still restricted, yet social media is of the most powerful ways to reach a wider audience. Eternal Life, the organization that publishes Hardon's works, continues to sell Fr. Hardon's talks and conferences in cassette format. The Archive and Guild, which is responsible for promoting Hardon's cause, has not yet utilized social media as much as it should. Compare these apostolates to Fr. Robert Barron's organization Word on Fire which boasts of an attractive and interactive website, social media integration, videos, blogs, news, audio, commentary, and much more...
This is all sadly ironic. During his lifetime Hardon championed the use of new media to spread the faith and actually utilized them. Hardon wrote that "Catholics must enter the media on all levels, they must provide sound doctrine, and authentic Catholics must cooperate with each other. Catholics must evangelize through print, film, radio, television, and now the Internet." However, these apostolates have fallen so far behind the times in making the works of Fr. Hardon available and, just as importantly, making people aware of their existence, that one wonders if they will even be able to get them into the hands of a new generation, especially in light of the work of the likes of Fr. Barron, whose paths were in many ways paved by the tireless efforts of Fr. Hardon.
Because of this lack of cooperation among apostolates, and coupled with so little use of new media, the Servant of God's cause for canonization, which began in 2005, continues to flounder. So few young people know about this holy priest, and those who do are growing older. The cause will continue to suffer until the various apostolates band together and help the Archive and Guild to promote the life and works of Fr. Hardon in an organized, tangible, and visible way that reflects the technological advances that have been made since Hardon's death nearly twelve years ago. To do so would in no way result in a loss of individual identity among the various apostolates, which each have their own particular and important missions to fulfill. Instead, collaboration would have the opposite effect: by working together on a larger scale each individual aposolate will be strengthened, and the life and works of Fr. Hardon will be known more intimately by a generation that so desperately needs to know Christ through them. As Fr. Hardon said, "Never before have such opportunities existed for literally fulfilling the Master's commission to preach the Gospel to the whole human race." It about time these apostolates work together to take full advantage of these opportunities and in doing so help advance Hardon's cause for canonization.
Fr. Hardon is so accurate here. I will never forget a young and very orthodox priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee once telling me that the problem with trying to get things changed is that too many of us spend our days trying to "out-orthodox" everyone else.
All that looks "orthodox" isn't necessarily so. A fishing net pulls up all sorts of things besides fish. Groups started or encouraged by Fr Hardon SJ often USE only what they pick and choose and change that promotes an agenda cut in the image of the leader or leaders of that group -- which is why there is no "cooperation". Fr Hardon SJ was not always successful in reaching the minds and hearts of his retreatants. Minds and hearts filter things and run with them according to their own dim light (which seems to them so brilliant). Or they see an opportunity for $$$$$$ or prestige or power (? !) in a famous and sought after name. I can NOT tell you how many times Fr Hardon SJ had to "flee" those he fostered -- who developed an Apostolate Fr Hardon SJ thought he had nurtured, only to discover it had gone in a totally questionable and opposite direction from everything Father intended, planned, and encouraged, and then had to "rescue" his truck-fulls of writings so that they would not suffer destruction and distortion, at that time or in the future. Happily Fr Hardon SJ's oversight is much more thorough and effective from Eternity (as is God's Providence) so in the right time, all those with the right stuff will accomplish all that inspired Fr Hardon SJ labors in Christ's Vineyard of the Church.
Luke 16:8 "... for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light" is echoed in Fr John Hardon SJ's reflective warning: "Most zealous Catholics are not as well organized or cooperative as those in the world. One of the hardest things is to get orthodox Catholics to cooperate." Woe Woe Woe !!! "Who's [orthodox] now?" I'm reminded at this point of Bp Barron's talk "Seven DEADLY sins -- Seven LIVELY Virtues"
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A big part of that is because orthodox are driven by principles. When one mistakenly holds up prudential elements as principles or fails to hold the proper hierarchy of goods, it's easy to get involved with initial disputes over the principles to be fought for.
Another is that orthodoxy defends truth and the structures that defend truth. It is far easier to collect a band of disparate parties to first overthrow the existing structures and then to battle on the new one. Most revolutions take that pattern. Once the establishment is overthrown there is a housecleaning amoung the revolutionary elements.
It's worth noting that the doctor that founded VOTF understood this, so he purposely never allowed a statement of principles to be created for VOTF so they would have nothing to argue about. Feminism is similar, in that feminist theology also eschews a doctrinal formulation, instead trying to emphasize subjective "experience". Though even that is contentious as one black feminist put it: "Whose experience, white woman?"
Part I
Reading this quote I cannot help but think that the Servant of God had in mind the remarkable lack of cooperation that continues to exist among the many apostolates he founded during his lifetime. These apostates, which include the Marian Catechist Apostolate, Eternal Life, the Father Hardon Media Apostolate, the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association, the Institute on Religious Life, and others, have yet to unite in any meaningful and collaborative way to make his voluminous works in various media widely available to a new generation of Catholics who desperately need them in accessible formats and attractive platforms.
This lack of collaboration is most evident in the void among the apostolates it the use of promoting Hardon's work through the new media. There are numerous examples. The Father Hardon Media Apostolate "exists to motivate the faithful to use all the means of social communications to evangelize the world and to teach the Catholic Faith." Yet the most significant means of social communication today, the internet, is embarrassingly under utilized by the Media Apostolate. The website for this apostolate, and most of the other apostolates for that matter, is static and antiquated, and there is no obvious promotion of social media to spread the Faith. Another example: The Marian Catechist Apostolate exists to form catechists who will teach the Faith, but it has not done enough to make the learning materials Hardon wrote available to younger faithful using new media. As I write the Marian Catechist Facebook page is still restricted, yet social media is of the most powerful ways to reach a wider audience. Eternal Life, the organization that publishes Hardon's works, continues to sell Fr. Hardon's talks and conferences in cassette format. The Archive and Guild, which is responsible for promoting Hardon's cause, has not yet utilized social media as much as it should. Compare these apostolates to Fr. Robert Barron's organization Word on Fire which boasts of an attractive and interactive website, social media integration, videos, blogs, news, audio, commentary, and much more...
Part II
This is all sadly ironic. During his lifetime Hardon championed the use of new media to spread the faith and actually utilized them. Hardon wrote that "Catholics must enter the media on all levels, they must provide sound doctrine, and authentic Catholics must cooperate with each other. Catholics must evangelize through print, film, radio, television, and now the Internet." However, these apostolates have fallen so far behind the times in making the works of Fr. Hardon available and, just as importantly, making people aware of their existence, that one wonders if they will even be able to get them into the hands of a new generation, especially in light of the work of the likes of Fr. Barron, whose paths were in many ways paved by the tireless efforts of Fr. Hardon.
Because of this lack of cooperation among apostolates, and coupled with so little use of new media, the Servant of God's cause for canonization, which began in 2005, continues to flounder. So few young people know about this holy priest, and those who do are growing older. The cause will continue to suffer until the various apostolates band together and help the Archive and Guild to promote the life and works of Fr. Hardon in an organized, tangible, and visible way that reflects the technological advances that have been made since Hardon's death nearly twelve years ago. To do so would in no way result in a loss of individual identity among the various apostolates, which each have their own particular and important missions to fulfill. Instead, collaboration would have the opposite effect: by working together on a larger scale each individual aposolate will be strengthened, and the life and works of Fr. Hardon will be known more intimately by a generation that so desperately needs to know Christ through them. As Fr. Hardon said, "Never before have such opportunities existed for literally fulfilling the Master's commission to preach the Gospel to the whole human race." It about time these apostolates work together to take full advantage of these opportunities and in doing so help advance Hardon's cause for canonization.
Fr. Hardon is so accurate here. I will never forget a young and very orthodox priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee once telling me that the problem with trying to get things changed is that too many of us spend our days trying to "out-orthodox" everyone else.
All that looks "orthodox" isn't necessarily so. A fishing net pulls up all sorts of things besides fish. Groups started or encouraged by Fr Hardon SJ often USE only what they pick and choose and change that promotes an agenda cut in the image of the leader or leaders of that group -- which is why there is no "cooperation". Fr Hardon SJ was not always successful in reaching the minds and hearts of his retreatants. Minds and hearts filter things and run with them according to their own dim light (which seems to them so brilliant). Or they see an opportunity for $$$$$$ or prestige or power (? !) in a famous and sought after name. I can NOT tell you how many times Fr Hardon SJ had to "flee" those he fostered -- who developed an Apostolate Fr Hardon SJ thought he had nurtured, only to discover it had gone in a totally questionable and opposite direction from everything Father intended, planned, and encouraged, and then had to "rescue" his truck-fulls of writings so that they would not suffer destruction and distortion, at that time or in the future. Happily Fr Hardon SJ's oversight is much more thorough and effective from Eternity (as is God's Providence) so in the right time, all those with the right stuff will accomplish all that inspired Fr Hardon SJ labors in Christ's Vineyard of the Church.
Luke 16:8 "... for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light" is echoed in Fr John Hardon SJ's reflective warning: "Most zealous Catholics are not as well organized or cooperative as those in the world. One of the hardest things is to get orthodox Catholics to cooperate." Woe Woe Woe !!! "Who's [orthodox] now?" I'm reminded at this point of Bp Barron's talk "Seven DEADLY sins -- Seven LIVELY Virtues"
https://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/seven-deadly-sins-seven-lively-virtues
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