A QUICK NOTE ON HERMENEUTICS

In light of the posts and conversations and demands for the Truth Faith about to come about (I hope), we need to say a quick word about the word hermeneutics before we get to it on the NCW on Sunday.

To perhaps overly simplify it, hermeneutics refers to how one interprets a text, particularly Scripture. In a larger sense, it’s how one interprets the world. One’s hermeneutic—whether when dealing with Scripture or not—tends to color everything in the way you see things.

One of my favorite examples comes from Fiddler on the Roof. In the movie, amongst the colorful cast of characters, a young Communist named Perchik (played by Paul Michael Glaser of Starsky and Hutch fame) comes to stay with Tevye’s family in return for school lesson for the younger children. Perchik tells the children the story of Jacob and Laban (Gen.29:15-28), and how Jacob agreed to work for Laban for seven years in return for the hand of his younger daughter Rachel. But after the seven years, Laban pulled the switcheroo, and Jacob wound up marrying the older sister Leah. To get Rachel, Jacob had to work another seven years for her.

“And the moral of the children,” Perchik says: “You can never trust an employer.”

It’s meant as comic relief, particularly since the village is Jewish, and the story deals with the living out of the Jewish faith. Even so, Perchik illustrates how his Communist hermeneutic of class warfare colors everything, including how he reads the Scriptures.

It’s the same thing with the NCW. Kiko’s hermeneutic colors everything, and it’s primarily responsible for why dialogue with the NCW is virtually impossible, why their liturgy is aberrant, their Marian devotion diminished, and their contempt for the Tradition and traditional Catholics so great.

Until then.