A traditionalist rebuke of the “Vatican II” Church? Boniface, the politically-incorrect saint?
The Universal Church celebrated the feast of Saint Boniface, Apostle of Germany, on 5 June. Among other things, St Boniface was (in)famous for boldly walking up to a group of pagans, chopping down the tree they worshiped, and converting them to Christianity.
Some Catholics cringe with embarrassment when they hear the outline of the story. “We don’t do this now,” they say. This is cultural vandalism, from a more primitive past. We are “Vatican II Catholics”. A church of inter-religious dialogue and cultural sensitivity.
Catholics of a more traditionalist bent would see the example of Boniface as a stinging rebuke to the post-conciliar “church of nice”. The commentary for this traditionalist meme for instance portrays Boniface as a Schwarzenegger-like hero , taking off his shirt, chopping down the tree dedicated to the pagan god Thor, and declaring triumphantly once the tree is felled (in an Austrian accent), “How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he!”
This is supposedly in contrast to the “church of nice”, whose only Gospel seems to be tolerance and fashionable progressive causes. St. Boniface, declared one article, “would not last long in the Novus Ordo Church”.
The Real Saint Boniface
The reality is actually much more complicated (and interesting).
Why did St Boniface target the “Thor tree”? In a very moving passage, which portrayed the bravery and kindness of St. Boniface, this article from Catholic Answers, which attempts to explain the connection of St. Boniface to the Christmas tree, relates:
From his missionary travels, Boniface knew that in winter the inhabitants of the village of Geismar gathered around a huge old oak tree (known as the “Thunder Oak”) dedicated to the god Thor.
This annual event of worship centered on sacrificing a human, usually a small child, to the pagan god. Boniface desired to convert the village by destroying the Thunder Oak, which the pagans had previously boasted the God of Boniface could not destroy, so he gathered a few companions and journeyed to Geismar.
“Here is the Thunder Oak; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor.”
Boniface and his friends arrived at the time of the sacrifice, which was interrupted by their presence. In a show of great trust in God and born from a desire to enkindle the fire of Christ in the German pagans, Boniface grabbed an axe and chopped down the Thunder Oak of mighty Thor.
The Germans were astounded. The holy bishop preached the Gospel to the people and used a little fir tree that was behind the now felled oak tree as a tool of evangelization. Pointing to it he said,
“This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree tonight. It is the wood of peace… It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.”
St. Boniface was acting as both a Navy SEAL, conducting a police raid to rescue a child from being murdered, and a rehabilitation officer, showing the Germans a better way, a God whose strength is in meekness.
St Boniface’s method of inter-religious dialogue
While Boniface is uncompromising when dealing with belief systems which call for the ritual murder of innocent human beings, he was much gentler when such belief systems exhibited humane qualities.
In a passage which may scandalise Catholic triumphalists, Boniface declared:
… the birth-night of the Christ, the son of the Almighty, the Savior of mankind. Fairer is He than Baldur the Beautiful, greater than Odin the Wise, kinder than Freya the Good. Since He has come sacrifice is ended. The dark, Thor, on whom you have vainly called, is dead. Deep in the shades of Niffelheim he is lost forever. And now on this Christ-night you shall begin to live.
In other words, Boniface was careful to differentiate the types of gods the pagan Germans worshiped, and attempted to show how Christ fulfills the legitimate hopes of paganism.
Learning from St Boniface today
In a homily during the height of the Pachamama controversy, the Bishop of Regensburg Rudolf Voderholzer asked the pertinent question,
Does the Christian message bring something new, or does it merely confirm and sanctify that which is already present and tradition?
Drawing on the example of St. Boniface, Bishop Voderholzer notes that:
Boniface did not dance around and embrace the Thor Oak — the cult object of the Germanic world of gods — but, rather, he felled it and made out of its wood a cross and a St. Peter’s chapel.
This, the bishop continued, was:
… a wonderful image for the implantation of the newness of the Gospel into the continuity and discontinuity of that which was there before!
The task for the Catholic today is to neither triumphalism or niceness. It is simply this. To preach Christ crucified, and the God who is the vinedresser, who in transforming individuals and cultures, cuts away what does not bear fruit, and pruning what already does, so that it can bear even more abundant fruit. (John 15:1-3)
Jesus Christ walks toward the “’natural’ religiosity” of all men, but then “purifies it at the same time and gives them the unsurpassable, divine answer.
“In Christ,” Bishop Voderholzer continued,
… all religions are ‘lifted up,’ ‘lifted up’ in a three-fold sense: abolished, lifted up, and preserved,” “without a certain breach with the past, Christ’s newness cannot be gained.
May we experience the newness of Christ, for His mercies are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:23)
