Category: Are the CTCers Paying Attention?

The Bible Can't Speak To All of Life

Published on by D. G. Hart1,133 Comments

That’s why you need the Roman Catholic Church.

That, anyway, is the logic of a golden-oldie from U.S. Roman Catholic teaching about the dangers of fundamentalism:

Biblical fundamentalists are those who present the Bible, God’s inspired word, as the only necessary source for teaching about Christ and Christian living. This insistence on the teaching Bible is usually accompanied by a spirit that is warm, friendly, and pious. Such a spirit attracts many (especially idealistic young) converts. With ecumenical respect for these communities, we acknowledge their proper emphasis on religion as influencing family life and workplace. The immediate attractions are the ardor of the Christian community and the promises of certitude and of a personal conversion experience to the person of Jesus Christ without the need of church. As Catholic pastors, however, we note its presentation of the Bible as a single rule for living. According to fundamentalism, the Bible alone is sufficient. There is no place for the universal teaching church—including its wisdom, its teachings, creeds, and other doctrinal formulations, its liturgical and devotional traditions. There is simply no claim to a visible, audible, living, teaching authority binding the individual or congregations.

A further characteristic of biblical fundamentalism is that it tends to interpret the Bible as being always without error or as literally true in a way quite different from the Catholic Church’s teaching on the inerrancy of the Bible. For some biblical fundamentalists, inerrancy extends even to scientific and historical matters. The Bible is presented without regard for its historical context and development. . . .

We observed in biblical fundamentalism an effort to try to find in the Bible all the direct answers for living—though the Bible itself nowhere claims such authority. The appeal of such an approach is understandable. Our world is one of war, violence, dishonesty, personal and sexual irresponsibility. It is a world in which people are frightened by the power of the nuclear bomb and the insanity of the arms race, where the only news seems to be bad news. People of all ages yearn for answers. They look for sure, definite rules for living. And they are given answers—simplistic answers to complex issues—in a confident and enthusiastic way in fundamentalist Bible groups.

The appeal is evident for the Catholic young adult or teenager—one whose family background may be troubled; who is struggling with life, morality, and religion; whose Catholic education may have been seriously inadequate in the fundamentals of doctrine, the Bible, prayer life, and sacramental living; whose catechetical formation may have been inadequate in presenting the full Catholic traditions and teaching authority. For such a person, the appeal of finding the “ANSWER” in a devout, studious, prayerful, warm, Bible-quoting class is easy to understand. But the ultimate problem with such fundamentalism is that it can give only a limited number of answers and cannot present those answers, on balance, because it does not have Christ’s teaching church nor even an understanding of how the Bible originally came to be written, and collected in the sacred canon, or official list of inspired books.

Our Catholic belief is that we know God’s revelation in the total Gospel. The Gospel comes to us through the Spirit-guided tradition of the Church and the inspired books: “This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testament are like a mirror in which the pilgrim church on earth looks at God” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 7).

A key question for any Christian is, Does the community of faith which is the Lord’s church have a living tradition which presents God’s word across the centuries until the Lord comes again? The Catholic answer to this question is an unqualified yes. That answer was expressed most recently in the Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council. We look to both the church’s official teaching and Scripture for guidance in addressing life’s problems. It is the official teaching or magisterium that in a special way guides us in matters of belief and morality that have developed after the last word of Scripture was written. The church of Christ teaches in the name of Christ and teaches us concerning the Bible itself.

The basic characteristic of biblical fundamentalism is that it eliminates from Christianity the church as the Lord Jesus founded it.

Notice that a desire for certainty in all of life’s dilemmas is not wrong. Neo-Calvinists take heart. The problem is asking the Bible to supply all the answers. The Bible only goes so far. After that, the church and tradition need to kick in.

A similar dynamic may very well be at work with neo-Calvinism. You need the Bible but you also need philosophy which provides the rudiments of w-w, which in turn yields the answers to life’s questions.

Both Rome and neo-Calvinism give a living tradition that augments Scripture. Both also like philosophy — a lot.

2kers should also take heart. The idea that the Bible doesn’t speak to all of life is like what we’re sayin’. We’re also saying, live with the uncertainty. To which the Romanists and Amsterdamists reply, “that’s not inspiring.”

Be Merciful to Me, Person Forgetful of the Persecuted

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

Is this really the way the Stations of the Cross are supposed to work?

Lord Jesus, Pope Francis has asked us to contemplate “the martyrs of our own time” saying, “They refuse to deny Jesus and they endure insult and injury with dignity. They follow him on his way.” Help us learn from them to follow in your footsteps.

First Station

Pilate condemns Jesus

“Crucify him!” they said. “The verdict of Pilate was that their demand should be granted.” Luke 23:21, 24

We remember those who stand before modern Pilates, atheist materialists, drug lords and Islamists from Colombia to China, powerful rulers who see Christ and his Church as an obstacle and want to destroy both in their people.

Lord Jesus, like our brothers and sisters before us, help us accept the unjust judgment of Pilate in order to show your perfect love and goodness.

The Second Station

Jesus Accepts His Cross

“Carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.” John 19:17

We remember Blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio. In 1928 Mexico, the 15-year-old boy was tortured and attacked as he made his own way to his place of execution. “If you shout, ‘Death to Christ the King,’ we will spare your life,” the soldiers told him. Jose shouted “Viva Cristo Rey!” (Long live Christ the King!) and died a martyr.

Lord Jesus, when we are offered an opportunity to share your cross, give us the grace to say yes.

The Third Station

Jesus Falls the First Time

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” John 15:18

We remember those who stop practicing their faith in times of persecution. Not everyone is a hero. Many quietly denounce Christ either out of fear of reprisal, or for fear of unpopularity.

Lord Jesus, you fell on your way of the cross and then got up. Have mercy on those who have stopped practicing their faith when persecution has come in whatever form, and inspire them to return.

(Eleven more stations and lots of empathy and denial.)

Is the suffering of Jesus supposed to make us think of international affairs and struggles among national powers? Or might it not be helpful for remembering the reason for his suffering and death, like my sin?

Just askin’.

Worried about the Gospel?

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

Ross Douthat identifies the three groups of Roman Catholic conservatives who are critical of Pope Francis (I don’t think Jason and the Callers made the list — no mention of logic or motives of credibility):

1. Traditionalists. These are Catholics defined by their preference/zeal for the Tridentine Rite Mass and their rejection of (or at least doubts about) various reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Some attend mainstream parishes that offer the mass in Latin, others are affiliated with orders specifically organized around the old rite, others are connected to parishes run by the (arguably; it’s a long argument) schismatic Society of Saint Pius X. There’s lots of variation within traditionalist ranks (my friend Michael Brendan Dougherty, cited by Bruenig, is a “trad” of a different sort than, say, this fellow), but the important things to emphasize are first, that their numbers (in the American context and otherwise) are quite small; second, that their concerns are not usually the same as those of the typical John Paul II-admiring conservative Catholic (traditionalists were often not admirers of the Polish pope); and third, that their skepticism of Pope Francis was probably inevitable and pretty clearly mutual. . . .

2. Catholics who are economic conservatives or libertarians. These are Catholic writers and personalities who have publicly disagreed with the pope’s statements on the economy, capitalism and (pre-emptively, regarding his looming encyclical) the environment; in its crudest form, their criticism proceeds from the same premises as the (not-at-all Catholic) Rush Limbaugh’s famous suggestion that Francis is “preaching Marxism” when he critiques the global economy’s rapacious side. But it’s noteworthy, I think, that the loudest voices here are not usually figures particularly known for their Catholicism. . . .

3. Doctrinal conservatives. These are conservative American Catholics whose Francis-era anxieties center around the issues raised during last fall’s synod on the family, and particularly around Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposal to admit Catholics in second marriages (which the church does not recognize as marriages at all) to communion — an issue I may have written about from time to time. Many of them are also economic conservatives and likely Republican voters, but not all, and notwithstanding that overlap they mostly regard the stakes in the Kasper/divorce debates as much more theologically significant than the stakes in, say, the pope’s forthcoming environmental encyclical. As with the economic debate, the more prominent the commentator, the more circumspect they tend to be in directly criticizing Francis on these issues: The tendency, instead, is almost always to separate the pope from the Kasper faction, critiquing that faction vigorously while reassuring readers that no doctrinal change is in the offing. (My own approach here is distinctive, and perhaps imprudent.) But at the same time, the pattern in which the debate has proceeded, I think, leaves little doubt that if Francis were to adopt Kasper’s proposals or others like them there would necessarily be much more open opposition from this group.

One way of interpreting this is to say that conservative Roman Catholics are concerned about the language of the liturgy, the economy, or the family. Where, Protestants may wonder, among these criticisms of the pope is a concern about mortal sin and protecting the church as a means of grace for freeing believers from guilt and condemnation? To be fair, Douthat himself as one of the doctrinal conservatives has raised the issue of mortal sin and whether the church could conceivably turn a blind eye to it if it tolerates people on second marriages, or gay couples to take communion.

But it is striking to this observer how little concern there seems to be for defending and maintaining the gospel as set forth by the Council of Trent or even John Paul II’s catechism. It could be that these are settled matters that need no more attention. But if you have ever studied the history of Protestantism, such silence about the most important teachings of the church are likely an indication not of confidence but of indifference.

By the way, I wonder if Jason and the Callers have noticed how small the conservative presence is within the U.S.?

Earlier this month, the Pew Forum released the results of its latest survey of American Catholic opinion about Pope Francis. The headline was that he’s basically as popular as Pope John Paul II at his peak, but the truly interesting nugget comes when American Catholics are asked to identify themselves politically.

Francis has an 89 percent approval rating among Catholic Republicans, almost identical to his 90 percent mark among Democrats. Among self-described “conservatives” he gets a 94 percent thumbs-up, which is actually seven points higher than his 87 percent approval among Catholics who call themselves “moderates/liberals.”

Perhaps what the conservatives have figured out is that Francis may be all about compassion and mercy in implementation of doctrine, but he’s hardly Che Guevara in a cassock. If there’s a “Francis revolution” underway, it appears to be more about the pastoral application of teaching rather than revisions to it.

As the dust settles, the Catholic Church is still saying “no” to women priests, gay marriage, and contraception, even if it’s trending softer in terms of how those positions are communicated and enforced. It’s an agenda that plays well with moderates, but leaves many liberals disappointed.

Southern Baptists and Jason and the Callers Together

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

SBC Today continues to press hard against Calvinism, this time by sponsoring a conference with four former “Calvinists” under the theme, “Leaving Geneva” (hello! Geneva is not in the South):

Please join us for supper! We will explore the journeys of four former Calvinists who have each found a spiritual home within our tradition. Afterward, we will entertain a brief Question and Answer Period. The cost is $20 and includes supper and books! Each registrant will receive:

Reflections Of A Disenchanted Calvinist: The Disquieting Realities of Calvinism by Ronnie W. Rogers

Chosen or Not?: A Layman’s Study of Biblical Election and Assurance by Doug Sayers

God So Loved the World: Traditional Baptists and Calvinism by Fisher Humphreys and Paul E. Robertson

The Return of Christ: A Premillennial Perspective by David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke

Between the SBC at one end and Bryan’s logic at the other, Reformed Protestantism looks pretty darned moderate.

(All that coalition building, so few SBC Calvinists.)

Postscript: Calvinism in the SBC is like slavery in the SBC:

There are those today who take the view that the founders of the Baptist denomination (the ones who were right, anyway,) were Calvinists – and therefore all Baptists ought to be as well. This might be called the historical argument for Calvinism. If I were to argue that since many of the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention believed God ordained slavery, all Baptists ought to do so today, would you buy that historical argument? Or would you rather go to the scripture and try to see how at a particular time and in a particular culture, such a doctrine could actually be expressed as revealed truth? History, as I say, is debatable. Just for the sake of debate, why don’t we look at an interpretation of certain facts of history, and see if we can find some historical reflections that will help us in our conflicted present?

Always is a Long Time

Published on by D. G. Hart25 Comments

Over at Commonweal, the interpreters interpreting THE interpreter, assert something about the unchanging nature of Roman Catholic teaching:

The Catholic Church has always taught that the right to private property is never absolute, and must always be subordinated to common use—making sure that the needs of all are met. And while collectivism can elevate common use at the expense of private ownership, free-market individualism errs in the opposite direction. Writing at the time of the Great Depression, Pius XI was particularly blunt: “The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces,” he said. “For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.”

The notion that the church goes back to Peter invites this notion of a long tradition of unwavering conviction. But the antiquity of Rome also invites a form of amnesia in which apologists and interpreters read the most recent back into the past. Most people suffer from this problem. Historians call it presentism. But it is a weightier matter for Roman Catholic apologists since so much of the case against Protestantism hinges on the notion that Rome has 1500 more years than Protestantism.

Yet, rarely do the historically minded do justice to the pronounced changes that have accompanied Rome’s own adaptation to modern life. Consider the recent “breathtaking” editorial where editors on the left and the right of matters Roman Catholic experienced a kumbayah epiphany and joined paragraphs to oppose capital punishment:

We, the editors of four Catholic journals — America, National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter and Our Sunday Visitor — urge the readers of our diverse publications and the whole U.S. Catholic community and all people of faith to stand with us and say, “Capital punishment must end.”

The Catholic Church in this country has fought against the death penalty for decades. Pope St. John Paul II amended the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church to include a de facto prohibition against capital punishment (2263-2267). Last year, Pope Francis called on all Catholics “to fight … for the abolition of the death penalty.” The practice is abhorrent and unnecessary. It is also insanely expensive, as court battles soak up resources better deployed in preventing crime in the first place and working toward restorative justice for those who commit less heinous crimes.

This also prompted Dwight Longenecker to praise God for a kairos moment. There is nothing wrong — aside from the spirituality of the church — with Roman Catholics opposing the death penalty. It’s a free country and if you’re going to be in the business of editorializing about everything and sundry in the name of Christ, why stop now?

The problem is that the meme of antiquity obscures level headed reflection on what the church has “always” taught and even sometimes did. The much longer history of Christianity indicates that Roman Catholics (Protestants too) not only supported capital punishment but that popes as temporal rulers oversaw the execution of persons who committed capital offenses. I can’t vouch for the accuracy, though the material is plausible, but here is a list of the criminals executed during the reign of the Roman pontiff as a temporal or civil authority. It is long, maybe not as long as that for other kingdoms or nations, but if true in the context of the recent editorial it calls to mind Captain Renault’s shock to learn that gambling was taking place in Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.

Numbers like this may explain why John Allen was could write the way he did about John Paul II’s change on capital punishment:

So strong had Italian aversion to capital punishment become that when an anarchist named Angelo Bresci assassinated King Umberto I in 1900, Italian courts sentenced him to life in prison. It was the first time a man had killed a European king (without toppling his regime) and not been executed.

Yet the Catholic church was never part of this development. The guillotine was busy up to the very last minute of the pope-king’s regime. Its final use came on July 9, 1870, just two months before Italian revolutionaries captured Rome.

What explains this stubbornness? In part, that Catholic standby — tradition. Christian writers since the fourth century had defended capital punishment.

St. Augustine did so in The City of God. “Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand [of God], it is in no way contrary to the commandment `Thou shalt not kill’ for the representative of the state’s authority to put criminals to death,” he wrote.

Augustine saw the death penalty as a form of charity. “Inflicting capital punishment … protects those who are undergoing it from the harm they may suffer … through increased sinning, which might continue if their life went on.”

Aquinas followed Augustine in the 13th century in Summa Contra Gentiles. “The civil rulers execute, justly and sinlessly, pestiferous men in order to protect the state,” he wrote. The Cathechism of the Council of Trent, issued in 1566, solidly endorsed capital punishment as an act of “paramount obedience” to the fifth commandment against murder.

Nor was this tradition confined to the Middle Ages. As late as Sept. 14, 1952, Pope Pius XII echoed its logic. “It is reserved to the public power to deprive the-condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already he has dispossessed himself of the right to live,” he said.

The leading abolitionists of the 18th and 19th centuries were Enlightenment-inspired critics of revealed religion. Popes defended their right to send people to death because to do otherwise seemed tantamount to abandoning belief in eternal life.

Catholic scholar James Megivern summed up the tradition this way: “If tempted to waver, one needed only to consult the bedrock authorities from Aquinas to Suarez. Questioning it could seem an act of arrogant temerity. If one did not believe in the death penalty, what other parts of the Christian faith might one also be daring or arrogant enough to doubt or deny?”

All of which makes the shift in thinking under John Paul II astonishing.

In the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, John Poul wrote that the only time executions can be justified is when they are required “to defend society,” and that “as a result of steady improvements … in the penal system such cases are very rare if not practically nonexistent.”

Not only journalists but Cardinals were surprised by the pope’s change. In a piece for First Things in April 2001, Avery Cardinal Dulles reminded the chorus of U.S. Roman Catholic death penalty opponents of their church’s history going back before Vatican II, papal social encyclicals, and the unification of Italy:

In modern times Doctors of the Church such as Robert Bellarmine and Alphonsus Liguori held that certain criminals should be punished by death. Venerable authorities such as Francisco de Vitoria, Thomas More, and Francisco Suárez agreed. John Henry Newman, in a letter to a friend, maintained that the magistrate had the right to bear the sword, and that the Church should sanction its use, in the sense that Moses, Joshua, and Samuel used it against abominable crimes.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the consensus of Catholic theologians in favor of capital punishment in extreme cases remained solid, as may be seen from approved textbooks and encyclopedia articles of the day. The Vatican City State from 1929 until 1969 had a penal code that included the death penalty for anyone who might attempt to assassinate the pope. Pope Pius XII, in an important allocution to medical experts, declared that it was reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life in expiation of their crimes.

Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that the State has authority to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death.

Dulles added the theological reasons for such a tradition and noted the flimsy premises for opposition to the death penalty:

To warrant this radical revision—one might almost say reversal—of the Catholic tradition, Father Concetti and others explain that the Church from biblical times until our own day has failed to perceive the true significance of the image of God in man, which implies that even the terrestrial life of each individual person is sacred and inviolable. In past centuries, it is alleged, Jews and Christians failed to think through the consequences of this revealed doctrine. They were caught up in a barbaric culture of violence and in an absolutist theory of political power, both handed down from the ancient world. But in our day, a new recognition of the dignity and inalienable rights of the human person has dawned. Those who recognize the signs of the times will move beyond the outmoded doctrines that the State has a divinely delegated power to kill and that criminals forfeit their fundamental human rights. The teaching on capital punishment must today undergo a dramatic development corresponding to these new insights.

This abolitionist position has a tempting simplicity. But it is not really new. It has been held by sectarian Christians at least since the Middle Ages. Many pacifist groups, such as the Waldensians, the Quakers, the Hutterites, and the Mennonites, have shared this point of view. But, like pacifism itself, this absolutist interpretation of the right to life found no echo at the time among Catholic theologians, who accepted the death penalty as consonant with Scripture, tradition, and the natural law.

The mounting opposition to the death penalty in Europe since the Enlightenment has gone hand in hand with a decline of faith in eternal life. In the nineteenth century the most consistent supporters of capital punishment were the Christian churches, and its most consistent opponents were groups hostile to the churches. When death came to be understood as the ultimate evil rather than as a stage on the way to eternal life, utilitarian philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham found it easy to dismiss capital punishment as “useless annihilation.”

In other words, the switch in attitudes about the death penalty among contemporary Roman Catholics (magisterial and lay) has less to do with biblical and theological reflection and more to do with the modernist habit of adapting the faith to modern times. Worse, it reflects the modern sensibility of knowing that we know better than people who lived in the past. Even worse, this notion of knowing better runs up against the problem of knowing more than say, the son of God, the apostles, or (for Roman Catholics) infallible popes knew. I understand that many Roman Catholic apologists think that modernism can’t happen among Roman Catholics because Pius X condemned it and that settles it. But the phenomenon of modernism is always before the church, that is, a temptation to cave in to the pressure that comes from the opposition between the church and the world (as if Vatican II wasn’t a classic case of caving with its program of updating the faith).

The haunting thought that so-called conservatives like Father Dwight should have is this: if the church which for centuries had regarded capital punishment as a plausible outworking of revealed truth can change on this, what might the bishops do at the upcoming summit on families, marriage, and sex?

Imagine If This Applied to Church Members

Published on by D. G. Hart11 Comments

Jacob Wood continues the discussion that haunts conservative Roman Catholics about whether a pope can be a heretic. He draws on the works of Francisco Suarez and Robert Bellarmine:

Bellarmine was more hesitant about the whole question. Unlike Suarez, he did not take it as a given that the pope could be a formal heretic. Actually, Bellarmine considered it “probable” that God would prevent the pope from ever being a formal heretic (he says it twice: De Romano Pontifice 2.30 and 4.2). Nevertheless, Bellarmine was willing to consider what would be the case if the pope could fall into formal heresy.

If we assume that the pope could be a formal heretic, Bellarmine thinks Suarez’s opinion is wrong. Suarez allows the bishops to judge the pope. But one of Gratian’s basic rules is that no one can judge the pope. Sure, Suarez has Christ carrying out the judgment, but it is only because the other bishops of the Church have pronounced the judgment first.

Instead, Bellarmine adopts the position that Suarez rejected: the pope loses his office immediately by committing the sin of formal heresy, because people who commit that sin cease to be members of the Church, and God deposes a pope who is no longer a member of the Church. It’s true that the bishops could still get together and make a declaration that God had deposed the pope, but their declaration would not be a judgment in any real sense, only an acknowledgement of what God had already done. (De Romano Pontifice 2.30)

What is curious about this argument is that imagine how many Roman Catholics just lost their salvation (as in no salvation outside the church) by virtue of holding heretical views. Wood may take encouragement from the notion of papal audacity. But by so raising the stakes, Wood just made the work of the church a whole lot more onerous, first for the bishops and priests who need to police the sheep and second, for the sheep who may be guilty of mortal sin.

(BTW, with this kind of immunity for popes, you understand that the chances for substantial reformation are fat.)

Update:

Notice how Woods estimates papal reliability in terms that Protestants reserve for Scripture. First he quotes Gratian:

. . .no person can presume to convict him of any transgressions in this matter, because, although the Pope can judge everyone else, no one may judge him, unless he, for whose perpetual stability all the faithful pray as earnestly as they call to mind the fact that, after God, their own salvation depends on his soundness, is found to have strayed from the faith. (Decretum, Part 1, Distinction 40, Chapter 6)

Wood interprets: “So, no one can convict a pope of being remiss in his duties, because no one stands above the pope in judgment—unless the pope is a heretic, and then… Then what?”

This is the dilemma that Protestants face when they consider errors or discrepancies in Scripture.

But also notice how the Roman Catholic objection to Protestant diversity in interpreting the Bible becomes the diversity of Roman Catholics interpreting infallible popes. Here’s just the latest example of people without charism interpreting the fellow who is way above their spiritual pay grade:

It’s a misreading to see Pope Francis as seeking to impose a concrete solution to anything. He sees himself as initiating and overseeing a process, which is basically of the Holy Spirit. His own criteria for discernment are: If you get people together who are faithful to the magisterium, who speak boldly from their own experience and listen humbly to each other, and you give the process sufficient time for a proper discernment, then, if there is a convergence at the end of it, you can be confident that is of the Holy Spirit.

From my own research into his life, it became very clear to me that this actually is a subject that has occupied him since his 30s [and derives from] his deep reading of theologians, but also his understanding of how Church councils worked and his own experience of Church governance, first with the Jesuits and then the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and with the presidency of the bishops’ conference. [These have] taught him a lot of lessons about how the Church develops, as it were, under the Holy Spirit and how it can avoid the temptations that can beset any exercise of Church reform, which is splitting into parties. So that’s how I see the process. I see him enacting the process that is, in fact, very, very deeply thought through.

So how different (read superior) is the Roman Catholic paradigm from the Protestant one if both result in the same number of opinions about each’s infallible source of truth?

Church Reformed

Published on by D. G. Hart91 Comments

The archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone (gotta love that name), is kicking up a lot of dust in Roman Catholic and California circles for the policies he has initiated within his parochial schools. Here‘s an example of what Cordileone has in mind:

We, the Archdiocesan High Schools, Acknowledge that some of our administrators, faculty or staff may not be Catholics and some may be Catholics who are struggling to achieve fidelity to some of the teachings of the Church, but we are all nevertheless called and required to stand as effective and visible professional participants and proponents of truly Catholic Education. As effective professionals in a Catholic School setting, we all – administrators, faculty and staff – are required and expected to avoid fostering confusion among the faithful and any dilution of the schools’ primary Catholic mission. Therefore, administrators, faculty and staff of any faith or of no faith, are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths. To that end, further, we all must refrain from public support of any cause or issue that is explicitly or implicitly contrary to that which the Catholic Church holds to be true, both those truths known from revelation and those from the natural law. Those of us who consider themselves to be Catholics but who are not in a state of full assent to the teachings of the Church, moreover, must refrain from participation in organizations that call themselves “Catholic” but support or advocate issues or causes contrary to the teachings of the Church.

Some Roman Catholics wonder if Cordileone is in line with Pope France:

Cordileone suggests that he is in line with Pope Francis. In one way, he may be correct: It doesn’t appear that Francis is going to be changing any doctrine in the near future. But the whole world knows we have a pope who is focusing on Jesus’ message of love and inclusiveness and who has told Cordileone and his fellow culture warrior bishops to quit being obsessed with the sexuality issues. Our archbishop doesn’t even appear to be listening to his boss.

And if Pope Francis wants the church to come along side people who struggle with Roman Catholic teaching on marriage and sex, how is Cordileone helping the cause:

Cordileone stated that Catholics who endorse contrary views “create toxic confusion about our fundamental values.” But if Catholic couples, in the spirit of the pope’s recent comments, limit the number of children they have, is that toxic? If you are a little girl who is only here because science helped her mom and dad conceive her, is that toxic? If you are a 10 year old abused child and the only adoptive parents who want you are a loving, qualified gay couple, is that toxic? If you think that the civil rights of gays and lesbians should be protected, is that toxic?

Meanwhile, eight California legislators, mainly Democrat, are challenging the archbishop’s policies even as they raise questions about separation of church and state. In response, Cordileone wonders if the politicians would hire as campaign managers people who side with their political adversary in an election.

What may be the most provocative aspect of this controversy is what the archbishop’s reforms mean for the capacity of the Roman Catholic Church to achieve discipline. Isn’t this a case of an archbishop actually laying out policy in line with church teaching? If he can do it, why can’t others? And if others don’t follow Cordileone’s lead, why don’t Jason and the Callers reflect more on what this says about their communion where truth with a capital-T prevails (at least in theory)?

Running Things

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

In Miller’s Crossing, after gaining the upper hand over, Leo, the Irish mafia boss, Johnny Caspar, the Italian boss, complains that “running things” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Administration takes a lot of time and leads to a lot of compromise and loss of focus.

So, when the Renaissance popes built their capital city and their ecclesiastical office, did they ever consider what they might have done? How do you administer a global church with 1.2 billion souls and bodies? One way is through bureaucracy. Thomas Reese explains:

The Roman Curia is made up of the Secretariat of State, nine congregations, 12 councils, three tribunals, and a host of commissions, academies, institutes and other offices. Each of these was created in response to a perceived need or priority of a previous papacy.

But how do you reform these structures? You need one part Urban II and one part Peter Drucker:

Reforming the Roman Curia requires a theological vision for the Petrine ministry, a sense of what the church needs today, and a practical understanding of how to organize people to implement it.

First, what is the theological vision of the Petrine ministry? Is the pope an infallible, absolute monarch in whom all wisdom resides, or is he first among equals who acts collegially with the college of bishops?

If it is the former, then all important decisions will be referred to the pope or to those to whom he has delegated decision-making power in the Curia. Any issue that is in doubt must go up the chain of command.

If it is the latter vision, then the church needs a system for encouraging discussion and consensus building in the college of bishops. Here, the Curia is in service to the pope and the college of bishops; curial officials are not decision-makers.

Second, what are the needs of the church today? Does the church need more stability or change, unity or pluralism, clearer teaching or better witness? Should it be challenging or accommodating, devotional or prophetic?

Another way of asking this question is: What are the pope’s priorities? What does he want to focus on, and what does he want to delegate to others?

Third, all of this has to be organized into offices with people with specific responsibilities. Management experts note that different types of organizations are organized differently. An entrepreneurial startup is not run like an established utility. An emergency room is not a factory. The Department of Motor Vehicles is not the Marines. A business office is not a research lab.

Reform of the Roman Curia is difficult because there is no consensus on the Petrine ministry, the needs of the church today, or the practical issues of management.

While Jason and the Callers think that a magisterium fixes everything, they seldom notice that the very hierarchy that gives them such a sense of superiority lives life more like Johnny Caspar than John Wayne.

Making Excuses

Published on by D. G. Hart6 Comments

After reading defenses of the Crusades, this account of the Renaissance papacy by Eamon Duffy caught my eye.

First the bad:

The Renaissance papacy evokes images of a Hollywood spectacular, all decadence and drag. Contemporaries viewed Renaissance Rome as we now view Nixon’s Washington, a city of expense-account whores and political graft, where everything and everyone had a price, where nothing and nobody could be trusted. The popes themselves seemed to set the tone. Alexander VI (1492-1503) flaunted a young and nubile mistress in the Vatican, was widely believed to have made a habit of poisoning his cardinals so as to get his hand on their property, and he ruthlessly aggrandized his illegitimate sons and daughters a the Church’s expense. Julius II (1503-1513), inspired patron of Raphael, Bramante, Michelangelo and Leonardo, was a very dubious Father of all the Faithful, for he had fathered three daughters of his own while a cardinal, and he was a feocious and enthusiastic warrior, dressing in silver papal armour and leading his own troops through the breaches blown in the city walls of towns who resisted his authority. . . .

Papal audacity, indeed.

But just as the Crusades might qualify as a defensive omelet that required breaking eggs, so the excesses of the Renaissance popes were part of a package to restore the glories of Rome:

All this presents a luridly one-sided picture of the Renaissance popes. It takes no account of the massive task of reconstruction which confronted the papacy in the wake of the Great Schism. The popes of the later fifteenth century had to reinvent Rome. . . . Rome had no industries except pilgrimage, no function except as the Pope’s capital. The city and its churches were radically impoverished by the long absence of the popes in Avignon. . . . The Renaissance popes were determined to change all that, and set about planning new streets and raising buildings to perpetuate their own and their families’ names, buildings which would be worthy both of the centre of the Church and of the greatest of all earthly cities, the mother of Europe. The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Rome were the age of Humanism, a great age of renewed classical learning, the rediscovery of the principles of classical art, the flowering of creativity in painting, sculpture and architecture, and of a delight in life and beauty which represented not just lavish extravagance, but a renewed sense of the glory of creation. (Saints and Sinners, 133-34)

All better, then.

But who am I to judge since I benefited last summer from all that papal spending?

Even so, this period in papal history makes you wonder about Michael Sean Winter’s assessment of Vatican II, when the church went from being parochial to engaging the wider world:

Recognizing the dominant dualism of Christian spiritual history, which saw the world as bad or at least tainted and the Church as holy and undefiled, they Council Fathers could not turn their back on that history, but they needed to expand it. The authors write: “The dualistic opposition to the world, the patronizing diminishment of those who are called to marriage and family life, and the disparagement of those who serve in politics, art, education, technology, etc. (the works of the world), must be set aside as Church leaders seek to understand that God dwells precisely within the world both through the Church and in the creation itself. Service to the world is the mission of God for which Jesus was sent, and for which the Church was called and developed.” This expanded understanding of the theological significance of “the world” does not mean we cannot all recognize, and recoil from, a “worldly” cleric, nor get nervous when some neo-Gnostic confuses the natural and supernatural realms. But, this expanded understanding of the world mirrored the expanded ecclesiology of the Council, recognizing that it is baptism, not only ordination, that confers upon all the faithful, most of whom work in the world, the tasks the Jesus entrusted to the Church.

Is it just me or did the Renaissance popes look like they were fairly engaged with the affairs of the world? And might not a case be made that reform is still needed?

The Terrors of Certainty

Published on by D. G. Hart56 Comments

Does this Make Jason and the Callers Terrorists?

I can’t say I agree with this fellow’s reasoning, but when it comes to charism he seems to have more of it than the guy in the flannel cap.

One of Pope Francis’ closest advisors, and the leader of one of the most “liberal” Catholic hierarchies in the world, has denounced “traditional” young people for wanting “to be clear in their positions,” warning that it is a path to “terrorism.” In a related interview with the Jesuit magazine America, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the head of the German Bishops’ conference, applauded people in homosexual partnerships who want a “lifelong” relationship.

“I am astonished that most of our young people, and also Catholic homosexuals who are practicing, want a relationship that lasts forever,” Marx told America. “We must begin with the main points of the doctrine, to see the dream: the dream is to have a person say, a man and woman say, ‘You and you, forever. You and you, forever.’ And we as church say, ‘Yes, that’s absolutely OK. Your vision is right!’

“So we find the way. Then perhaps there is failure. They find the person, and it is not a great success. But life-long fidelity is right and good.”

He added, “The church says that a gay relationship is not on the same level as a relationship between a man and a woman. That is clear. But when they are faithful, when they are engaged for the poor, when they are working, it is not possible to say, ‘Everything you do, because you are a homosexual, is negative.’”

In his Stanford lecture, Cardinal Marx said, “I had a discussion with some of the students,” before the lecture, who asked him, “‘Cardinal is it true that the younger people are more traditional?’ And that’s true.”

“But that is not dangerous,” he said. “I have no problem with tradition. But we have also the tendencies that the people want to be clear in their positions. Black and white populism is growing in Europe. And that is the beginning, perhaps, of populism, of terrorism, that’s clear.”

“The atmosphere of reducing the complexity of the world, to give simple answers, to give black and white answers, is growing, and I think that is very dangerous,” the cardinal said.

Maybe Jason and the Callers’ defense is they aren’t young people.