| « | Great Oaks From Little Acorns Dept. |
»
|
|
Sunday, April 17, 2005
A House Of God Or A Den Of…What?
Regard well this morning's New York Times-modulated exercise in arrogance, authored by Colm Toibin:
Organized religion offers us comfort, but also pain; even if it is merely the pain of restriction and regulation, of obeying the rules, it is an essential aspect of belonging to most churches. On Monday, when the cardinals who rule the church will begin meeting in conclave to elect a new pope, the future of the church in the 21st century will be in their hands. That church, they know, is slow to change. Nonetheless, it is interesting how many of the restrictions and rules governing the lives of Catholics all over the world have lost their hold over the past 30 or 40 years. Confession, the telling of your sins directly to a priest and seeking forgiveness, is no longer an essential aspect of the lives of Catholics. There is not much emphasis now on the need to make personal sacrifices during Lent, the 40 days before Easter. Catholics eat meat on Fridays. Limbo, the place where unbaptized babies went, seems to have disappeared. And even where I live, in Dublin, which is populated for the most part by Catholics, stores are open on the Sabbath day and do a thriving business. All of this has happened gradually, without debate or much warning or explanation. The abandoned practices were not essential to the church's teaching, [1] and now they seem impossibly old-fashioned, like vinyl long-playing records or smoke-filled bars.The rules that the church still imposes that affect most law-abiding people tend to govern sexuality and gender; they seem difficult to many Catholics because they focus on the matter of how we love and whom we love. [2] A divorced woman falling in love a second time can be denied communion; a gay man who has found comfort, once unimaginable, in love can be excluded from the official church; a couple who use artificial contraception are deemed to be sinful; a priest who wishes to marry must leave; a woman who feels a vocation to the priesthood must live her life with this vocation unfulfilled.
What is strange is how much this exclusion matters to the many individuals involved, many of whom do not wish to walk away in bitterness. The embrace of the Catholic Church can be compelling. Part of this derives, oddly enough, from its very refusal to move with the times, its refusal to allow its faithful to rule rather than follow. Part of it comes from ideas of identity: it allows its members to feel that they belong to something ancient and global as well as to a small parish. And part of it comes from the beauty of Catholic ritual. The smells and bells, the altar, the vestments, the sense that this magnificent ritual is being conducted all over the world, offer Catholics part of their reason to remain, no matter what their differences with the hierarchy. [3]
[...snip...]
The slowness of Holy Mother Church, the sense of it as a bastion of distilled wisdom overseen by -- at least most of the time -- unworldly old men, guards it from fashion, gives it the immense solidity that is lacking in, say, the Church of England, which has moved with the times, thereby losing much of its power. But the slowness of the Catholic Church in dealing with the sexual abuse of children and minors by members of the clergy has been very damaging. It has seemed astonishing to the Catholic faithful that the official church did not understand that, for parents, the safety of children is antecedent to all rules and all hierarchies. In its response to these allegations, the church seems to have been truly universal; it behaved as badly in Boston as in Newfoundland as in Dublin as in Sydney, moving offending priests to other parishes rather than reporting them to the police, more concerned with protecting its own reputation than protecting innocent lives. [4] Would it have acted more responsibly if priests had been married, and if there had been female priests or openly gay priests? Would the abuse have happened at all?
[...snip...]
The cardinals who will elect a new pontiff have a great advantage. No matter whom they elect, the Catholic faithful, even the ones who have strayed, will not cease to feel that their spiritual life, their destiny, is bound up with this ancient organization, both beautiful and imperfect, made in man's image more than God's. [5] They will respect the pope, even love him, but, especially in the West, they will follow their own consciences on whom they love and how they love as much as on how they vote.
If one were to give advice to these grand old men -- and they are not, I notice, seeking advice -- it would be simple. Find a cardinal who was brought up with many, many sisters, who has a lesbian in the family, a cardinal whose life has been bound up and fully informed by women, who knows the problems and challenges they face in a church where they cannot minister. [6] Even if the next pope and his cardinals were not to change the rule against female priests quickly, it might be important, as acts of witness and of love, to enter into real dialogue with women in the church, and to be seen to listen, to take heed, as St. Patrick did centuries ago, to the other's pain.
[Emphases and enumerations added by your Curmudgeon.]
The quotes above, while extensive, don't fully capture the brass of this incredible piece from the pen of a self-nominated Catholic. The emphasized bits are those that strike your Curmudgeon as most egregious. Since the subjects, and your Curmudgeon's positions on them, are both complex and sensitive, a few prefatory words are in order here.
A church must, by its very nature, be a conservative institution. The point of a church is the conservation and dissemination of a body of doctrines. In the case of a Christian church, the body of doctrines to be conserved and disseminated was laid down by Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians hold to have been the Son of God, made flesh to bring them to us.
Since Jesus lived two millennia ago, it would have been impossible for Him to speak comprehensibly on subjects such as contraception, cloning, abortion, or many other things. The parts of His message that received specific emphasis were those closest to the concerns -- the spiritual concerns -- of those who flocked to hear Him. But He founded a Church, gave its keys to Saint Peter, and directed him and his fellows to "teach all nations." That church, of which the Roman Catholic Church of our time is the lineal descendant, has haltingly but resolutely propagated Christ's doctrines and Peter's Apostolic authority down the centuries since the Ascension, the nine days of prayer for guidance that followed, and the Pentecostal gift that empowered the Apostles to go forth in strength and faith.
The Church is served by mortal men. Mortal man is fallible, prone to all manner of errors and transgressions. Christ knew it. So did the earliest Apostles. Though the Church is infused with special grace and upheld by the prayers of many millions, there is no doubt that its highest servants and authorities are still mortal, still fallible, and still capable of overstepping their proper bounds, a subject on which your Curmudgeon has already spoken his mind.
It's in this light that one should ponder the assertion of papal infallibility.
There is no guarantee that the pope will, at any time, be a good man filled with the love of God, upheld by the grace of Christ, or moved by the desire to serve the Church's communion. There have been popes, particularly during the Renaissance era, who were plainly among the worst of men. But the pope, however bad a man he might prove to be, is nevertheless the Supreme Pontiff, the tenant of the Throne of Saint Peter. It is to be expected that the Church's communion will look to him, however flawed he might be, for guidance on those things the Commandments don't make crystal clear. In recognition of this came Pius IX's decree that the pope cannot teach error, and that, when he speaks ex cathedra as the Vicar of Christ on Earth, he speaks with the authority of Christ Himself.
But popes are mortal men. More, they're surrounded by mortal men -- and if a pope cannot teach error, he may yet be served by those who can, and who'll willingly do so in the pope's name.
Papal infallibility has been invoked only twice, both times quite recently in Church history, and both on theological matters rather than matters of lay conduct. (The subjects were the Immaculate Conception and the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven.) On all other subjects, the pope has let his statements, including all direction offered to the faithful, stand on his personal authority and dignity. Yet he is still the pope, Christ's Vicar on Earth, and that's quite a lot of authority and dignity to carry around. His statements will always be taken seriously by anyone who takes his position seriously -- about a billion people at last count.
So one must read a second clause into the decree of papal infallibility, one that was always there by implication but which is seldom discussed aloud, for fear that too much attention to it might undermine the first clause. Simply put, it goes like this: You can't go wrong by following papal teachings, whether they're ex cathedra and therefore explicitly infallible or not.
A Catholic is spiritually indemnified against any consequences that might arise from following papal direction. As unthinkable as it is, were the pope to sanctify abortion tomorrow morning, any Catholic who steered his course according to the pope's words would be free of spiritual penalty for doing so.
The opprobrium for the consequences would be on the pope's head, not on those who followed his teachings. If the shepherd leads his flock astray, it's not the sheep who will be blamed.
In view of this, the pope will be minded to be even more conservative about the accumulated teachings of the Church than most of us would expect from the head of a two thousand year old institution founded upon the grace of the Son of God made flesh. People will do as he says. If he tells them that X, some pleasurable or profitable action previously held to be a sin, is really okay, they'll embrace X -- and they won't suffer for it; he will.
Imagine having the moral weight of a billion people's personal sins on your head.
As mentioned a couple of days ago, a Catholic will be judged by God according to how well he followed his sincere conscience:
Catholics believe that an individual's conscience is the ultimate determinant of what is wrong or right for that individual. Moreover, God will judge us according to the fidelity with which we have followed our conscience. Nevertheless, this conscience needs to be formed by objective standards of moral conduct. The Church provides us with just that -- moral norms based on Jesus's teachings, the inspired scriptures, centuries of tradition, and the laws of nature.These moral standards may seem at times to be inhibiting or restrictive. The fact is, that quite to the contrary, they release or liberate us. These norms both make us free, and lead us to the deep happiness that comes from following God's plan. Jesus underscored that point when he said: If you live according to my teachings, you are truly my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32) [from What It Means To Be Catholic, by Father Joseph M. Champlin, published by St. Anthony Messenger Press / Franciscan Communications, with ecclesiastical approval by Archbishop Roger Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Emphasis in the original.]
A man whose conscience is functioning properly will hardly need to be told that the adoration of evil, the profanation of the sacred, the exclusion of the divine, filial disloyalty, murder, brutality, theft, adultery, false witness, or willed covetousness are wrong, and very wrong at that. The temporal consequences of these things are so obvious that even societies that have never allowed the penetration of the Commandments are aware of them. But the Commandments are ratifications of obvious natural laws, given to Man at a particular point in time. They could hardly embrace all that's appropriate or inappropriate to us of three thousand years later. Since they're the sole authenticated Words of God on what He demands of us, they're absolute; no pope would ever dream of setting them aside. Where the pope and the Church must labor is on the articulation of the implications of the Commandments, as their core truth relates to the opportunities and perils of our lives today. Since nothing is easier than drawing a weak implication even from a strong premise, this requires the pope to exercise extraordinary caution, respect for tradition and continuity, relentless recourse to the wisdom of others, and constant re-examination of his own conscience.
Swift, dramatic changes in long-established doctrines are almost guaranteed to be ruinously wrong.
Regular readers of Eternity Road will already be aware of your Curmudgeon's doubts about several specific Church teachings. He's a relatively well-read sort, and he thinks about what he reads. Couple that to a sense for the dynamics of religious institutions as embedded in their temporal milieu, and what comes out is a suspicion that, now and then, the Church has issued a decree for some reason other -- and lesser -- than that God commands it.
But the Church is still the Church, and the pope is still the Vicar of Christ on Earth, the man who holds the Keys in his hands while his tenure lasts. Just how far should any Catholic venture beyond what the pope and the Church have taught? How much latitude of conscience are you, Gentle Reader, willing to allow yourself, knowing that the fate of your soul hangs on your decision?
Today, the major controversies among American Catholics focus on sexual behavior and associated practices. Time was, the central issue was usury. Before that, it was the Church's power to coerce and punish in this world, which she's long since relinquished. Before that, it was the exact nature of Christ's relation to God the Father. The temporal milieu dictated that each of these issues, in its turn, command the attentions of many faithful. As their time passes away, so do they.
Your Curmudgeon has made up his own mind. He's a Catholic by mature choice and by the mercy and grace of a loving God. He's going to accept what the Church teaches -- all of it -- and live by it, regardless of his intellectual reservations. Those reservations won't be kept silent; indeed, it's part of a thinking man's duty to voice them at the appropriate times, in the hope of resolving doubts and correcting errors. But when he who sits on the Throne of Saint Peter speaks, your Curmudgeon will listen, and cleave to what he hears as best he can. A man who makes warplanes for a living should not presume his insight into matters of faith, sin and grace to exceed that of men who've made them their life's work.
With that, we return to Colm Toibin's execrable vanity.
Emphasized passage 1:
The abandoned practices were not essential to the church's teaching,...
...is an attempt to imply error, in the hope that the notion will support the writer's later contentions that the Church has erred on larger matters. But the fallacy of conflating a set of ritual practices and disciplines with monumental teachings on faith and sin should be obvious to anyone. The practices that have fallen into disuse were judged to be less constructive to faith and wholesome Christian living than they were once held to be; they don't bear on any significant question of moral weight.
Emphasized passage 2:
The rules that the church still imposes that affect most law-abiding people tend to govern sexuality and gender; they seem difficult to many Catholics because they focus on the matter of how we love and whom we love.
...focuses the reader's attention upon the writer's particular concerns. Note how greatly the moral substance of these things varies from that of ritual days of fasting and abstention. How great a disjunction there is between the sorts of rumination that would allow changes in these things!
Emphasized passage 3:
The smells and bells, the altar, the vestments, the sense that this magnificent ritual is being conducted all over the world, offer Catholics part of their reason to remain, no matter what their differences with the hierarchy.
...verges on obscenity. The writer attempts to demote the mighty spiritual appeal and authority of the Church to the impacts of its rites on our temporal sensoria. Would he have dared to say that it's the colors of the uniforms and the roars from the crowd that were the essence of football? Would he have spoken thus, say, in the company of Vince Lombardi?
Emphasized passage 4:
...it behaved as badly in Boston as in Newfoundland as in Dublin as in Sydney, moving offending priests to other parishes rather than reporting them to the police, more concerned with protecting its own reputation than protecting innocent lives.
...suggests that the writer has little understanding of the Church's dual nature: as the Mystical Body of Christ, in which all who believe participate throughout time, and as an institution served by fallible men, some of whom are necessarily as weak as anyone who's ever lived. The Church Mystical is continuous and indestructible. The prelates of the temporal Church -- from the lowest deacon to the Holy Father himself -- are its servants, not its masters. If they err, it indicts them alone, not the Church as a whole. And truly, in the matter of clerical homosexuality and pederasty, many Catholic prelates have erred grievously, out of the lowest imaginable motives. The Church must be cleansed of them, but the matter carries absolutely no implications for Church teachings, except that they should be more rigorously applied within its hierarchy.
Emphasized passage 5:
... made in man's image more than God's.
...merely reinforces the plainness of the misunderstanding -- which might be deliberate -- evinced by passage 4.
Emphasized passage 6:
...the problems and challenges they face in a church where [women] cannot minister.
...is a baldfaced assertion of falsehood. Women are incredibly welcome within the Church, and indeed are the backbone that supports its public face. Female religious orders do a huge fraction of the Church's work, and are greatly valued by Catholics worldwide. At this time, women cannot be ordained. This, like the requirement for clerical celibacy, is a discipline from tradition, akin to a company's personnel policies, rather than a command of God. Perhaps it will be altered, but your Curmudgeon passionately hopes that, should that come to pass, it will be for sound theological reasons rather than as a concession to pressure from harridans and activists who secretly despise the Church and would prefer to see it vanish from the Earth.
Mr. Toibin makes a single statement your Curmudgeon finds good and sensible:
If one were to give advice to these grand old men -- and they are not, I notice, seeking advice -- it would be simple.
Yes, it would indeed. An advisor seldom has to bear the costs or the consequences incurred by an advisee who acts on his counsel. Many would love to give "simple" advice to the Princes of the Church as they meet in conclave, starting tomorrow. Those advisors would feel no onus upon their consciences for anything that came of it.
Dear Lord, may You protect the cardinals of the conclave from all things distant from their mission. May You give them the wisdom they'll need to select a successor to our beloved John Paul II, now returned to you. May their choice be a worthy one. We Your children can ask nothing more. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Comments
"Imagine having the moral weight of a billion people’s personal sins on your head.”
This is why, when they cloak the new Pontiff, they take him to a room which is called the “room of tears” where he changes and then meditates; the assumption of that burden has caused many, of not all, popes to weep.
Posted by og on 04/17/2005 at 11:49 AM"It is to be expected that the Church’s communion will look to him, however flawed he might be, for guidance on those things the Commandments don’t make crystal clear.”
and
“Since they’re [the Commandments] the sole authenticated Words of God on what He demands of us, they’re absolute; no pope would ever dream of setting them aside.”
I find that it is always fun to poke Catholics about the 4th Commandment. If anyone should know the right day for the Sabbath, it is the Jews, who are very meticulous about keeping track. Notice that it isn’t Sunday. The Catholic Church decided to change their day of worship to Sunday fairly gradually over a couple of centuries and for a few different reasons, but they certainly did decide to ignore a Commandment, or at least “reinterpet” it.
Posted by on 04/18/2005 at 12:53 PMWere you under the impression that Eternity Road is a good place to “poke fun at Catholics,” Jonathan? If so, then you haven’t been reading the site for very long. In any case, it’s the last time you’ll do so on my bandwidth.
Have a nice life.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 04/18/2005 at 12:57 PMI did not say “poke fun”, nor did I mean it. I find the 4th Commandment to be an interesting issue for Catholics because it shows a conflict between God’s Word and Church teachings.
I’m a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian myself. My church generally thinks Catholics believe some strange and wrong things, but we usually work well together in things like relief and medical organizations. Please relax.
If you’d like to ban this IP as well, go ahead and I’ll respect it and leave you alone. I suppose I should have known better than to make a religious comment.
Posted by on 04/18/2005 at 02:01 PMWe Jews are also meticulous about keeping track of the fact that only Jews are supposed to observe the Sabbath.
Posted by Joseph Hertzlinger on 04/18/2005 at 05:33 PMBut surely Jews don’t encourage Christians to break any of the other 10 commandments? Why make an exception for the 4th?
Anyway, Christians should desire to emulate Christ, and He kept the Sabbath (although not in all the same ways as everyone else at the time!)
Posted by on 04/18/2005 at 05:54 PMToibin’s article takes the common line that the Catholic Church needs to move with the times, become less heirarchical, and take more liberal positions on contraception, divorce, homosexual behavior, yada yada yada. Francis Porretto clearly disagrees, but I don’t understand why the article drove him so completely over the edge. In his view Toibin is a “self-nominated Catholic” who penned an “execrable vanity” as an “exercise in arrogance”.
Some of his reactions to the passages he selected seem downright strange. Like when he says passage #3 (about the “smells and bells” of Mass) “verges on obscenity”. Surely some Catholics, especially those who aren’t particularly devout, stay faithful to their church partly from sentimental affection for the aesthetic appeal of Mass. It’s not obscene to point that out.
Or his reaction to passage #4, which he seems to consider an attack on all Church teachings. Toibin is mainly complaining that the heirarchical organization of the Church facilitated the scandal, and rightfully wonders if the scandal would have happened at all if married Catholics were allowed to become priests.
Or passage #6. There must be some Catholic women out there who consider the restriction on ordaining women to be obnoxious and hurtful, but yet who aren’t “harridans… who secretly despise the Church”.
Rather than simply writing that Toibin is wrong, Porretto makes Toibin out to be a scoundrel. But I guess he calls himself the Curmudgeon for a reason…
Posted by on 04/19/2005 at 01:36 AMYes, Peter, I do call myself a Curmudgeon Emeritus for a reason. A curmudgeon is one who possesses firm opinions that he’ll slather all over you at the slightest provocation. A curmudgeon emeritus is one who’s earned the title through long and honorable service in the ranks of the journeyman and master curmudgeons.
And I, a serious Catholic—that is, one who takes the moral and spiritual authority of the Church seriously—consider Toibin a scoundrel—one who seeks to harm something that others love, preferably by guile. Toibin would like us to view the Church as just a few old farts’ un-hip affectation, a relic of past rigidities that really ought to get with the times. No serious Catholic could react any other way than I did above.
The Church is not “in business to sell a product.” It’s certainly not there to cater to popular fads or fashions. It represents divine authority and guidance, and carries an extraordinary weight of responsibility thereby. It has no temporal power; it merely preaches. If you don’t like it, you’re free to remain aloof...which I suspect you have.
Colm Toibin is also free to find another home for his sentiments. Given the nature of those sentiments, it would certainly be appropriate.
Finally: In case you haven’t noticed, Eternity Road is my turf. I will not be called “over the edge” on my own turf, at my own expense. You can say whatever you like about me anywhere else, but in your future comments here, if you’re not a lot more polite, I’ll ban your sorry ass faster than you can say “Miracle of Transubstantiation.” This is your one and only warning.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 04/19/2005 at 07:24 AMDear Mr. Poretto,
You have emphasized Mr. Toibin’s passage 4:
[the church]” behaved as badly in Boston as in Newfoundland as in Dublin as in Sydney, moving offending priests to other parishes rather than reporting them to the police, more concerned with protecting its own reputation than protecting innocent lives.”
I will emphasize this passage of your response:
“the matter carries absolutely no implications for Church teachings, except that they should be more rigorously applied within its hierarchy.”
I agree with you that the actions of a few criminal priests do not reflect upon the teachings of the church mystical. That is not the institutional problem.
The heirarchy of the church: the monsignores, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, in every imaginable location on earth [“… Boston … Newfoundland … Dublin … Sydney…”] have covered up the most unspeakable crimes against children. They have repeatedly shielded clerical offenders from prosecution, because the church, speaking through the various popes, has for centuries maintained that her clerical prelates are not subject to the civil law. No pope has ever renounced this doctrine. (Please give dates et c. if I am wrong).
Regardless of promulgated doctrine, Mr. Poretto, you have always encouraged your readers to judge persons and institutions by their actions rather than by their words. Therefore I believe that the church, through her actions in protecting these heinous criminal child abusers, bears a heavy institutional responsibility, not for the abuse, but for the cover-up.
The new Pope will do sterling work if he purges the church of these evil men and assists the civil authority with their efforts to prosecute them.
Posted by on 04/19/2005 at 01:05 PMMr. Porretto,
I don’t think I wrote anything that I, if I were in your shoes, would consider rude or impolite. If I had a blog and you had written in the comments, “Sorry, folks, but with this posting Pete has gone completely over the edge,” I would not be remotely offended. Still, I apologize for any insult: it was entirely unintentional. I did not mean to slur either you or your religious beliefs.
Posted by on 04/19/2005 at 11:20 PM
Comment Form
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
