For the second time, Bishop Rob Mutsaerts made an appearance on Michael Voris’ Churchmilitant.tv, causing some concerns about the bluntness of his statements. While I don’t think that the statements are wholly incorrect or ill-advised, I do have my concerns.
Bishop Mutsaerts appears in the video below at the 9:58 mark.
My concerns are twofold, and they are related to context. Michael Voris has a very clear goal with this video: he wants to explain why he makes his show The Vortex the way he does, and he uses the bishop’s words as proof that it is needed. What we don’t get to see, however, is the context of these words, the conversation they were a part of.
Michael Voris spoke with Bishop Mutsaerts during an earlier visit to the Netherlands in May of this year. I wrote about it the time. I assume the footage we see in yesterday’s video was recorded then.
Bishop Mutsaerts’ words are only a short blurb, clearly a part of a larger conversation. We don’t know the context of that conversation, which could account for the apparent bluntness of the bishop’s words. That is one concern.
Secondly, it is is clear that English is not the bishop’s first language. While he takes care not to speak too fast, trying to find the right words for what he wants to express, this can still very easily open the door for misconceptions and using the wrong words for what he wants to say. Unfamiliarity with a language often leads to using the easiest and most general words available to the speaker. This too could be taking place in the blurb.
I fear that the impression I get is that Voris uses Bishop Mutsaerts’ words for his own goal, removing the context of the conversation as it took place at the time. And that can lead to confusion, not least among Catholics in the Netherlands, whose eyes are on the bishops during this week’s ad limina anyway.
And that leads to yet another concern, which has nothing to do with Michael Voris or any bishop directly. All eyes in secular and Catholic media, and among many faithful, are on the bishops, and rightly so, but anything that is not positive sign or statement is too often disregarded as unwarranted negativity and the incorrect attitude to things. Yesterday, the bishops were visibly very happy about their audience with Pope Francis, and that is great to see, and an encouragement. But that joy does not in any way invalidate any concerns and serious words or opinions that anyone may have. We can’t limit our ideas and opinions of the ad limina to mere feelings of optimism or pessimism, joy or annoyance.
Does the video above help or should we have our questions about its usefulness? In the end, it is too short to have much use beyond what Michael Voris has for it: a validation for his Internet activities. Support those as you may, or not (and I have some concerns about Voris’ approach), I don’t think Bishop Mutsaerts’ comments are much to get excited about. Yes, there are significant tensions between faith and society, Church and state, and it is disconcerting to look back and see how the ideas from the 1960s have taken society hostage, but is that something that we don’t know? I guess, for those who don’t, it could be useful as an eye opener. But beyond that… there’s little more to say about it.
Far more important is what we do with those facts, so let’s focus on that question as the ad limina continues.
In Caelo et in Terra 