UPDATED: Tradition And Strawmen

George Bergoglio--he's the guy who lives in Rome and dresses in white--has been on a toot lately attacking "rigidity" and "tradition"--as he sees it. For example, as reported by LIfeSite, in his homily for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, he appeared to compare ‘rigid’ Catholics to St. Paul’s persecution of the Church:

The Apostle Paul also experienced the freedom brought by Christ. He was set free from the most oppressive form of slavery, which is slavery to self. ... He was also set free from the religious fervour that had made him a zealous defender of his ancestral traditions and a cruel persecutor of Christians. Set free. Formal religious observance and the intransigent defence of tradition, rather than making him open to the love of God and of his brothers and sisters, had hardened him: he was a fundamentalist.

Those who have read Paul's letters and the account of his ministry in the Acts of the Apostles might be forgiven if they don't recognize this portrait of the apostle. Indeed, such persons might find in this dichotomy of tradition and freedom in Christ a straw man that Paul himself would have rejected. For Paul, it is precisely adherence to what was handed down--the tradition of the Apostles--that sets us free. Such subtleties are apparently lost on Bergoglio.

However, LifeSite notes:

UPDATED: I'm Amazed ... At These Modernist Times

Some of you may have heard that there's going to be a Synod soon in the Amazon. In that regard I was reading last night from an ancient letter that seemed pertinent:

6 I'm amazed that you're so quick to desert the One Who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.[1] 7 There is no other good news,[2] of course, but there are some who are disturbing you and trying to distort the good news of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim a gospel contrary to the good news we proclaimed to you, let them be accursed! 9 As we said before and now repeat, if anyone proclaims a gospel contrary to what you received from us, let him be accursed! 

1 'I'm amazed...' marks an even more drastic departure from the usual epistolary format, for in place of the usual thanksgiving Paul gets right down to business, without any attempt to hide his concern.
2 Or, 'There is no other gospel.'

And there are some who chose to see this pop song as a sort of parable for these modernist times:

UPDATE: From the second chapter of that ancient letter--also seems strangely relevant:

5 We didn't give in to them for a moment, so the truth of the gospel would be preserved for you.[1] 6 Those who were regarded as important--who they once were makes no difference to me; God pays no attention to a man's status[2]--those who were held in high regard had nothing further to add for me. ... 

11 But when Kephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly wrong. 12 For before certain men came from James, Kephas would eat in company with the Gentiles, but when they came he began to draw back and hold himself aloof because he was afraid of those who favored circumcision.[5] 13 The rest of the Jews also joined in the hypocrisy--even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their actions were inconsistent with[6] the truth of the gospel I told Kephas in front of them all, "If you, a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?" 

1 While Paul constantly preaches respect for the consciences of others, he will not compromise on a matter of principle--to compromise 'the truth of the gospel' is not true charity.
2 Lit., 'God doesn't regard the face of a man,' i.e., a man's status in human terms.
3 Kephas; 'Peter' in Aramaic.
4 The poor.' The Jerusalem church. Paul was eager for his Gentile converts to contribute to the Jerusalem church as a sign of the unity between Jew and Gentile which Christ had brought. 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans contain numerous references to the collection Paul took up among his new churches.
5 For a Jew to eat with Gentiles was to become ritually impure, since Gentiles were considered 'unclean.'
6 Perhaps more literally, 'were not in step with.'

Eliade: From Theogony to Philosophy

While Frank Moore Cross' account of the transition from archaic ontology is more theoretically complete, including a fuller account of the relationship between the theogonic and the cosmogonic gods and myths (see here and here), in Myth and Reality (1963) Mircea Eliade offers his own analysis of this important issue in his characteristically compressed style. Eliade's focus is on the process of demythicization and the survival of myth in "philosophy."

Eliade begins by referring to the process by which the “olden gods,” the Creator gods, lose their place in the cult and become marginalized, replaced by the young storm and warrior gods, such as Ba'l, Marduk, Zeus and later Yahweh.

Even when his name is still remembered—Anu of the Mesopotamians, El of the Canaanites, Dyaus of the Vedic Indians, Ouranos of the Greeks—the Supreme Being no longer plays an important role in religious life and is but little represented in mythology. The passivity of Ouranos as deus otiosus is plastically expressed by his castration... El yields the primacy to Ba'al as Anu does to Marduk. Except for Marduk, all these Supreme Gods are no longer “creative” in the active sense. They did not create the World, they only organized it and assumed the responsibility for maintaining order and fertility in it.. Primarily, they are Fecundators, like Zeus or Ba'al who, by their hierogamies with the Earth goddesses ensure the fertility of the fields and the abundance of harvests. (109)

The result of the replacement of the Creator god is that attention in myth is shifted from the ultimate origins to the activities of these young gods:

The accent is now on what happened to the Gods and no longer on what they created. To be sure, there is always a more or less clearly “creative” aspect in every divine adventure—but what appears more and more important is no longer the result of the adventure but the sequence of dramatic events that constitute it. The countless adventures of Ba'al, of Zeus, of Indra, or those of their colleagues in the respective pantheons, represent the most “popular” mythological themes. (110)

This state of affairs proved unsatisfying and even unedifying to the elite thinkers. This is most evident in Greece and in India (Eliade neglects to mention the Israelite prophets), but it is attested in many other societies to varying degrees. The result is the process of demythicization that we have already discussed, which leads to a paradoxical conclusion: