Category: Roman Catholicism

Unexpected Development

Published on by D. G. Hart272 Comments

Converts to a communion may often display a zeal that old-timers find off-putting. In Reformed circles, we have the phrase “cage phase” to denote the over zealous and new Calvinist who expects every Reformed pastor to sound like Calvin and every congregation to be as rigorous the New England Puritans.

It turns out that Roman Catholics have their own problems with converts. One instance, largely forgotten (perhaps another indication of Vatican II’s epoch-making shift) was the exchange between Orestes Brownson and John Henry Newman. Both were converts, but Brownson, admired by some contemporary conservatives, was not impressed by Newman’s theory of development of doctrine. In fact, Brownson believed it would kill Roman Catholicism (which makes it odd that Jason and the Callers do not regard Brownson as the model convert). Here is a short sampling of what Brownson said about the idea of the development of doctrine:

. . . we could not accept Mr. Newman’s Essay, even ,if its theory were susceptible of a satisfactory explanation. It deserves to be excluded from every Catholic library for its unorthodox forms of expression, as scandalous, even if not as heretical, erroneous, or rash. Words are things, and used improperly by men of eminence, or with inexactitude, become the occasion of error and heresy in others. Not a few of the errors which have afflicted the Church have come in under shelter of loose or inexact expressions, which great and sometimes even saintly men have suffered to escape them. The vain, the restless, the proud, the disobedient, seize on them, ascribe to them a sense they will bear, but not the one intended by their authors, and lay the foundation for ” sects of perdition.” Sometimes even better men are deceived and misled, as we see in the case of Fenelon. One cannot be too careful to be exact in expression, or to guard against innovation in word as well as in thought, especially in this age, in which there is such a decided tendency to abandon the scholastic method for the rhetorical. The scandalous phraseology of the Essay is no charge against its author, writing when and where he did, but is a grave charge against the Essay itself.

Finally, we repeat, from our former article, that we object to the Theory of Developments the very fact that it is a theory. We see no call and no room for theories in the Catholic Church, — least of all, for theories concocted outside of her by men whose eyes are dim, and who have nothing but their own reason to work with. From the nature of the case, they are theories, not for the conversion of their authors, but for the conversion of the Church, — framed to bring her to them, not them to her. They can do no good, and may do much harm. It is natural for us to concoct them when out of the Church, for then we have, and can have, nothing but theories, and can do nothing but theorize ; but, if we are wise, we shall not attempt to bring them into the Church with us. The more empty-handed we come to the Church, the better ; and the more affectionately will she embrace us, and the more freely and liberally will she dispense to us her graces.

Lest anyone miss the implicit significance of this exchange for the future of Roman Catholicism and its conservative (or traditionalist) members, readers should know that some Roman Catholics believe that Newman prevailed and Brownson lost at Vatican II. Here is how one traditionalist puts it:

. . . Brownson foresaw the future danger should Newman’s theory become accepted in the Church. Unless his theory was renounced, Brownson affirmed, it would either ultimately lead Newman himself out of communion with the Church or, much worse, be wrongly absorbed into the Catholic Church (p. 1).

In fact, the latter happened. His “pioneer” work established the idea of the development of dogma as a principle later held by the Modernists. Taken up by the Progressivists, it was consecrated at Vatican II, invoked in both the Declaration of Religion Freedom and the Constitution on Revelation. (2)

Newman alleged he was simply showing that the Catholic Church of his time was in continuity with that of the Apostles and the Fathers. But Vatican II did what Brownson feared could happen – it used this ‘theory’ to justify new advances and actual shifts in doctrine, such as its teaching on religious freedom. Jesuit Avery Dulles singled out Newman as anticipating the thought of Karl Rahner “to the effect that every dogmatic proclamation is not only an end, but also a beginning.” (3)

Someone could object that this work was written when Newman was a Protestant, and, therefore, should be disregarded as irrelevant after Newman’s conversion to Catholicism. The objection would be pertinent if he had rejected its theories or buried it, as Brownson suggested. On the contrary, he offered the work to the public and continued to defend its thesis until the end of his life. Thus, the objection is invalid.

Most American Catholics have not read Newman’s suspect theological works, such as the Essay on Development of Doctrine. His fame and popularity rest on his letters and sermons on piety and religious devotion. Let those well-meaning Catholic take the time to read at least Brownson’s criticism of Newman’s Essay, and they may begin to question the orthodoxy of the “oracle from Littlemore.” They may also begin to wonder if the beatification of Newman, rightly called the Father of Vatican II by the progressivists themselves, has the underlying purpose of giving needed impetus to the Council at a time when dissatisfaction with it is significantly increasing.

These tensions within Roman Catholicism may be obscure to recent converts, as difficult to perceive as the real fault lines between conservatives and other varieties of Roman Catholic communicants. For instance, John Zmirac has wondered (a la Brownson about Newman) whether Protestant converts to Rome understand what happened at Vatican II or whether they can find their way to the genuine Roman Catholic liturgy:

7) The Novus Ordo Missae was crafted by an ecumenical committee (including Protestants) that aimed at Christian unity. In a creative compromise, the committee cut large sections from the Mass — those that made it screamingly obvious that the Mass was a sacrifice and a wedding. The committee also trimmed away many rituals designed to underscore those doctrines, adding other practices to boost the role of the laity and undercut the role of the priest.

These changes didn’t vitiate the sacrament, but they did cloud its symbolic and catechetical clarity. They also reduced its dignity, gravity, and beauty. The Dies Irae gave way to “Gather Us In.” Or, as then-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “In the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living, process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it — as in a manufacturing process — with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.”

8) The most important elements that distinguish the priest’s role from the people’s, and hence Catholic sacraments from Protestant prayer services, are the following: The priest facing the altar; the prayers of the old Offertory (which survive in the First Eucharistic Prayer); the exclusive claim of the clergy (priests and deacons) to handle the Sacrament; the all-male priesthood; and kneeling for Communion on the tongue.

9) Each practice we add to the liturgy that blurs the difference between the people and the priest adds to confusion about what the heck is going on up on the altar. It’s no surprise that after 40 years of liturgical “renewal,” only 30 percent of American Catholics still believe in transubstantiation. More troublingly, those who are receiving Communion rarely bother with the Sacrament of Penance. The old terror of blasphemy that was underlined by gold patens tucked under our chins gave way to a shrug and a smile as we take in our hands a wafer from a neighbor.

10) Dissenters from key Catholic doctrines of faith and morals took ruthless advantage of the hype surrounding the Second Vatican Council and the symbolic confusion sowed by radical liturgical changes — which seemed to signal, like a new flag flying over a country, a new regime in the Church. Maybe a new Church altogether. Some of these dissenters, like Archbishop Rembert Weakland, were also involved in creating the new liturgy itself.

11) That liturgy kept on metastasizing, “renewing” itself seemingly every year. The same bishops who pushed relentlessly for Communion in the hand, extraordinary ministers of Communion, altar girls, and standing for Communion were the men who appointed feminists and pro-gay, pro-contraception, and even “pro-choice” delegates to dissident conferences such as the Call to Action (1976). Such bishops also persecuted adherents of the old liturgy and clergy who preached Humanae Vitae. The same men repeatedly defied Pope John Paul II, who avoided a schism and decided instead to replace them as they retired with more faithful bishops. He mostly succeeded.

All of the above is simply, uncontroversially true. And in saner times, it would be none of a layman’s business. We have enough on our plates pursuing our own vocations and staying in a state of grace, and we really shouldn’t have to shop around for the least sacrilegious parish, or fight with our bishop’s religious education office against nuns who deny the Creed. But here we are, still gasping for breath as the smoke of Satan slowly lifts, and there’s no excuse for pretending the air has been clear all along. The Bride of Christ has been battered, hounded, and hunted by the Enemy — but she’s still standing, as we were promised. Now it’s our task to bind her wounds, repair the rents in her gown, and lovingly comb her hair.

Although Zmirac is no traditionalist, one Trad Catholic has picked up on the problem that Protestant converts post-Vatican II face when trying to adjust to and find a place within Rome’s traditionalism:

Catholic converts from Protestantism bring to the Church a certain mentality that can make it difficult for them to accept Traditionalist arguments in favor of restoring a lot of the discarded “externals” of our faith’s tradition. In the post I used myself as a reference point (being a revert to the faith from charismatic Protestantism) and explained how it took some time for me after my return to the Church to start seeing the beauty of Traditional Catholicism, and perceive that much had been lost by rejecting this beauty. . . . I deny that a convert from Protestantism is not as “good’ as a cradle Catholic; I did say (and I maintain) that a convert-from-Protestantism-mentality does color the way we see things once we return to the Church.

It is interesting, however, that John Zmirak . . . talks about the non-Trad confusion over apparent Trad fixation on “mere externals.” This is, I think, one of the central ideas of Traditionalism – that alleged inessentials were not as inessential as once thought.

I often wonder if Jason and the Callers got more than that for which they bargained. They have a lot to make sense of over there on their side of the Tiber. Here is how Boniface puts it:

Then why bother even pointing out the differences? Because the Catholic Church as a whole – Trad, non-Trad, liberal, mainstream, whatever – is in an identity crisis. Who are we, and what does it mean to be Catholic? What does a Catholic life look like? These questions of identity;,far from being useless and divisive, are I think some of the most important issues Catholics can examine. I tend to take the position that Traditionalism exemplifies a more perfect continuity with the fullness of Tradition than other non-Trad manifestations of the faith, and part of what I do here is defend that proposition against those who take a more negative approach to Traditionalism. We may disagree on what Catholic identity should look like, but let’s not say that these questions are not important; if only our fathers in the 1960’s and 1970’s had more of a concern for Catholic identity, we might not be in a liberal crisis.

Given Jason and the Callers’ covering their eyes to church history — ancient and recent, I am not sure they are up to the task of accounting for such developments. But they sure know they aren’t Protestant (as long as they don’t know about Brownson).

Let the Interpretation Resume

Published on by D. G. Hart102 Comments

Or Jason Stellman has some ‘splainin’ to do.

Jason is still justifying his realignment by trotting out the familiar refrain that sola scriptura doesn’t solve anything, thus making Protestantism the road to ruin and mayhem.

For the confessional Presbyterian, the reason the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches is “not a [true] church” is that its theology disagrees with the interpretation of the Bible espoused by confessional Presbyterians, and therefore CREC pastors are not truly ordained and thus ”don’t have the sacraments.” But of course, this is completely circular: “Our view is that the marks of a true church include properly understanding the gospel [or, agreeing with our interpretation of the Bible concerning what the gospel is], and since the CREC falls short in this regard, it therefore fails to meet our criteria of what a true church must be.” But this is a perfect recipe — indeed a license — for anarchy and schism. Any fallible group of people can now gather together, decide what counts as a true church, and then dismiss from that category everyone else who disagrees with them.

This is why Sola Scriptura — even in its more churchly expressions — ultimately fails. As long as there’s some sincere, Bible-believing Christian who disagrees with the church on some issue, all that will result from an ecclesiastical decision on that issue (even from a church’s highest court) is a never-ending “yeah-huh!” / “nuh-uh!”, he said / she said dispute.

In fact, it’s not just that this may be the result, it’s that it must be, for the irresolvability of any theological controversy is built into the whole Protestant system from the get-go. So even if the proper formula is not Solo but Sola, the “A” at the end still stands for Anarchy.

If Protestants suffer from interpretive discord, what is the affliction that Roman Catholics experience when confronted with the statements of their interpretive authority? For instance, I wonder if Jason believes the following affirmations and denials from various popes (or does he have to explain them)?

From Boniface VIII (1305) on the church’s supreme power which includes wielding both swords:

We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords’ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard’ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.

However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God’ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.

From Nicholas V (1455) with global political power trying to arbitrate which Roman Catholic monarch gets to colonize the “new” world and vanquish the Saracens (i.e. Muslims):

The Roman pontiff, successor of the key-bearer of the heavenly kingdom and vicar of Jesus Christ, contemplating with a father’s mind all the several climes of the world and the characteristics of all the nations dwelling in them and seeking and desiring the salvation of all, wholesomely ordains and disposes upon careful deliberation those things which he sees will be agreeable to the Divine Majesty and by which he may bring the sheep entrusted to him by God into the single divine fold, and may acquire for them the reward of eternal felicity, and obtain pardon for their souls. This we believe will more certainly come to pass, through the aid of the Lord, if we bestow suitable favors and special graces on those Catholic kings and princes, who, like athletes and intrepid champions of the Christian faith, as we know by the evidence of facts, not only restrain the savage excesses of the Saracens and of other infidels, enemies of the Christian name, but also for the defense and increase of the faith vanquish them and their kingdoms and habitations, though situated in the remotest parts unknown to us, and subject them to their own temporal dominion, sparing no labor and expense, in order that those kings and princes, relieved of all obstacles, may be the more animated to the prosecution of so salutary and laudable a work.

Condemnations from Clement XI (1713) which repudiate the Augustinian convictions of the Jansenists:

41. All knowledge of God, even natural knowledge, even in the pagan philosophers, cannot come except from God; and without grace knowledge produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and opposition to God Himself, instead of the affections of adoration, gratitude, and love.

42. The grace of Christ alone renders a man fit for the sacrifice of faith; without this there is nothing but impurity, nothing but unworthiness.

43. The first effect of baptismal grace is to make us die to sin so that our spirit, heart, and senses have no more life for sin than a dead man has for the things of the world.

44. There are but two loves, from which all our volitions and actions arise: love of God, which does all things because of God and which God rewards; and the love with which we love ourselves and the world, which does not refer to God what ought to be referred to Him, and therefore becomes evi

Pius IX’s condemnation of the separation of church and state:

Others meanwhile, reviving the wicked and so often condemned inventions of innovators, dare with signal impudence to subject to the will of the civil authority the supreme authority of the Church and of this Apostolic See given to her by Christ Himself, and to deny all those rights of the same Church and See which concern matters of the external order. For they are not ashamed of affirming “that the Church’s laws do not bind in conscience unless when they are promulgated by the civil power; that acts and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, referring to religion and the Church, need the civil power’s sanction and approbation, or at least its consent; that the Apostolic Constitutions,6 whereby secret societies are condemned (whether an oath of secrecy be or be not required in such societies), and whereby their frequenters and favourers are smitten with anathema — have no force in those regions of the world wherein associations of the kind are tolerated by the civil government; that the excommunication pronounced by the Council of Trent and by Roman Pontiffs against those who assail and usurp the Church’s rights and possessions, rests on a confusion between the spiritual and temporal orders, and (is directed) to the pursuit of a purely secular good; that the Church can decree nothing which binds the conscience of the faithful in regard to their use of temporal things; that the Church has no right of restraining by temporal punishments those who violate her laws; that it is conformable to the principles of sacred theology and public law to assert and claim for the civil government a right of property in those goods which are possessed by the Church, by the Religious Orders, and by other pious establishments.” Nor do they blush openly and publicly to profess the maxim and principle of heretics from which arise so many perverse opinions and errors. For they repeat that the “ecclesiastical power is not by divine right distinct from, and independent of, the civil power, and that such distinction and independence cannot be preserved without the civil power’s essential rights being assailed and usurped by the Church.” Nor can we pass over in silence the audacity of those who, not enduring sound doctrine, contend that “without sin and without any sacrifice of the Catholic profession assent and obedience may be refused to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to concern the Church’s general good and her rights and discipline, so only it does not touch the dogmata of faith and morals.” But no one can be found not clearly and distinctly to see and understand how grievously this is opposed to the Catholic dogma of the full power given from God by Christ our Lord Himself to the Roman Pontiff of feeding, ruling and guiding the Universal Church.

And Pius XII’s condemnation of evolution (complete with a reassertion of the loyalty that folks like Jason owe to the papapcy):

37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

(19. Although these things seem well said, still they are not free from error. It is true that Popes generally leave theologians free in those matters which are disputed in various ways by men of very high authority in this field; but history teaches that many matters that formerly were open to discussion, no longer now admit of discussion.

20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who heareth you, heareth me”;[3] and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.)

Now maybe Jason agrees that the papacy holds both swords, the spiritual and temporal, or that the pope has power to grant the colonization of new lands around the world to European powers, or that something apart from grace prepares a believer for faith, or that church and state should be united, or that evolution is false and that the papacy has the power to rule on matters of science.

Or perhaps, he needs to interpret the very words of his source of supreme interpretation. Then again, he can always appeal to the theory and ignore historical reality.

Papal Obsession: What's in A Name?

Published on by D. G. Hart100 Comments

One positive consequence of recent interactions with Roman Catholics like Brad Gregory, Christian Smith, the indefatigable Bryan Cross, and the stellar work of Francis Oakley is an awareness of just how complicated and fascinating the history of the papacy is. Eamon Duffy puts it this way in his new book on the papacy:

Thomas Hobbes famously remarked that the papacy was “not other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned on the grave thereof.” The comment was certainly not intended as a compliment, but it encapsulated an important historical reality nonetheless. Through no particular initiative of their own, the Popes inherited the mantle of Empire in the West; the papacy became the conduit of Roman imperial values and symbolism into the European Middle Ages. In a time of profound historical instability at the end of antiquity and in the early Middle Ages, the see of Peter was a link to all that seemed most desirable in the ancient world, custodian of both its secular and its sacred values. The papacy embodied immemorial continuity and offered divine sanction for law and legitimacy. So popes crowned kings and emperors and, on occasion, attempted to depose them. Even in the eighth and ninth centuries papal authority stood high, although the papacy was the prisoner of local Roman politics and many of the popes themselves were the often unlearned sons of feuding local dynasties. (17-18)

Anyone with a historical awareness, with visions of Christianity having access to and reach within corridors of power, and with a desire for a church that has roots deeper than some denomination that emerged in the 1780s, would likely be drawn to membership with a church such as Rome presents. At the same time, a concern for the spiritual depths of Christianity has not always been at the forefront of the papacy’s ministry, unless maintaining supremacy in European politics and mediating the Roman Empire were crucial pieces of that spiritual service.

The historical and cultural depth of the Vatican gives almost every aspect of the papacy significance beyond surface impressions and as a result should stimulate the imagination of anyone who studies the past. The case of Gregory XVI, who became pope in 1831 and who is the subject of Owen Chadwick’s first chapter (A History of the Popes, 1830-1914), illustrates the point.

The most famous pope of the Middle Ages to assert papal power against emperors and kings was Pope Gregory VII, Hildebrand. Ever since the high Middle Ages popes were conscious that in Gregory VII they made an emperor to kneel in the snow at Canossa, that in Innocent III they acted as the international authority of Europe, that in Bonfiace VIII they asserted the ultimate secular power of the pope as well as his ultimate spiritual authority. They were also aware that these tremendous claims were not often recognized and sometimes were repudiated with contempt or with force. Gregory VII died in exile, Boniface sickened and died after being kidnapped and rescued. In the Counter-Reformation, when Spanish and afterwards French power became strong in Italy, they grew hesitant of using such names lest they remind Europe of the contrast between the past glories of the Holy See and the weakness of its present occupant. No one had chosen the name Boniface since 1389, when the see was divided by the Great Schism. Gregory XIII was a famous name of the Counter-Reformation and shortly afterwards there were two more Gregorys; one ruled for less than a year, the other for two years, yet they were important. Towards the end of the seventeenth century and early in the eighteen century there were three weighty popes who took the name Innocent. But in the eighteenth century they preferred to take gentler-sounding names, such as Clement (four of those), Pius, or Benedict. The coronation of Pius VI in 1775 stared the age of the Piuses — during the next 183 years there were only fifty-four years in which the pope was not named Pius. And when they were not called Pius they avoided high-and-mighty sounding names — with one exception. . . .

The name Gregory was a claim. This was a cardinal who reacted against the French Revolution and all that it stood for. He seems to have had Gregory VII in his mind; but also, while a cardinal, he did a lot for the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, and the last Gregory had founded the Congregation. When the French Revolution kidnapped the Pope, he published a cry of resistance to the revolution The Triumph of the Holy See and the Church against the Attacks of Innovators (1799).

Just when the papacy looked moribund, and many said that Pius VI was the last pope in the history of Europe, and no one could see how the institution could survive even in Italy, he published this book, which rejoiced in the coming victory of the Church over its enemies. . . .

In not liking the way the modern world was going Gregory XVI was characteristic of the popes, with one possible exception, for the next 127 years. (1-3_

This messiness of Europe and the papacy’s place in it is what defenders of the popes and their infallibility generally leave out. Does history undermine spiritual authority? Critical biblical scholarship has long raised the issue of the humanity of the Bible in ways the complicate assertions of Scripture’s divine origin. Conceiving of and maintaining the papacy’s spiritual rights and gifts while paying attention to its tawdry political successes, setbacks, and ambitions is perhaps just as plausible as conservative Protestant defenses of the Bible’s inerrancy. But the problem for folks like the Callers is that we actually can see how they make the sausage. The papacy is an institution that left behind records, and combated other institutions that also left a paper trail. The authors of Scripture left no such traces. We don’t know how many drafts, for instance, Paul may have written before getting it just right to send a letter to the Christians at Rome. When the Callers don’t acknowledge the actual guts of the making of the papacy and insist only on the spiritual truths of the papacy, they appear to be in denial. They may simply be ignorant. But their claims for the papacy’s power, antiquity, and charism are decidedly partial.

But for the rest of us, the papacy is breathtaking in its preservation of an ancient order, despite all the changes between Rome in 70 and Paris in 2010, even if that order is now confined to 109 square acres.

Voluntarism Redux?

Published on by D. G. Hart15 Comments

The news of Francis’ washing the feet of a Muslim woman has revealed a new wrinkle in my understanding of papal supremacy. Those in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome are not entirely sure what to make of the pope not complying with established procedures in the liturgy prescribed for Holy Thursday. Here is one report that features discontent among traditionalists:

The church’s liturgical law holds that only men can participate in the rite, given that Jesus’ apostles were all male. Priests and bishops have routinely petitioned for exemptions to include women, but the law is clear.

Francis, however, is the church’s chief lawmaker, so in theory he can do whatever he wants.

“The pope does not need anybody’s permission to make exceptions to how ecclesiastical law relates to him,” noted conservative columnist Jimmy Akin in the National Catholic Register. But Akin echoed concerns raised by canon lawyer Edward Peters, an adviser to the Vatican’s high court, that Francis was setting a “questionable example” by simply ignoring the church’s own rules.

“People naturally imitate their leader. That’s the whole point behind Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. He was explicitly and intentionally setting an example for them,” he said. “Pope Francis knows that he is setting an example.”

The inclusion of women in the rite is problematic for some because it could be seen as an opening of sorts to women’s ordination. The Catholic Church restricts the priesthood to men, arguing that Jesus and his 12 apostles were male.

Francis is clearly opposed to women’s ordination. But by washing the feet of women, he jolted traditionalists who for years have been unbending in insisting that the ritual is for men only and proudly holding up as evidence documentation from the Vatican’s liturgy office saying so.

For the attempt by a conservative to justify Francis’ actions, see this.

The question that Francis raises is whether the pope is bound by church law and teaching or whether by virtue of his supremacy, power, and infallibility whatever he does is right.

One answer might be the one favored by the Callers who are my instructors in all things conservative Roman Catholic. When talking about papal infallibility, for instance, Bryan Cross is quick to note that this authority is carefully prescribed:

If it were true that (a) the ratified decisions of ecumenical councils regarding faith or morals, taught definitively to be held by all the faithful, contradicted each other, or (b) that the definitive papal proclamations to be held by all the faithful on matters of faith or morals contradicted each other, or (c) the teachings in (a) contradicted the teachings in (b), that would not only be a “serious problem” for the doctrine of magisterial infallibility; it would demolish the entire Catholic paradigm. But none of those three has occurred, and Horton does not even point to an alleged case where one of those three occurred.

Have councils erred? Yes. Think of the Robber Council of Ephesus in 449, or the Council of Rimini in 359. But they did not err when the conditions in (a) were met. Have popes erred? Again yes. Think of the errors of Pope Vigilius and Pope Honorius, and the way Urban VIII handled the Galileo case. But no popes have erred under the conditions specified in (b). The Catholic doctrine of magisterial infallibility is not falsified by errors of the sort just mentioned, because it is a highly qualified doctrine, such that divine protection from error is assured only under very specific conditions.

This reading of infallibility implies that the pope does not have unlimited power. It means that popes do actually sin and err, and that they are bound but notions already defined that specify the nature of sin and error. In other words, popes need to submit to a rule of law and teaching. At least, that is one way of reading Cross’ version of the hierarchy.

Another answer to the question of relations between papal supremacy and the rule of law might invoke medieval debates about voluntarism, a no-no in the history of Christian theology according to some historical theologians. I am no expert on nominalism, realism and the debates of late medieval theologians, but among nominalists developed the idea of voluntarism, a view which located moral goodness more in God’s will (whatever he does is right) than in an abstract set of laws (which God established and needs to follow). This view of God, the argument goes, became one that the Protestants used to assert that God’s ways transcended the church’s rules and authority. As such, voluntarism was the fast track to undoing papal authority.

Theological voluntarism or Divine Command Theory holds that an act is rendered moral neither by its consequences (utilitarian or consequentialist ethics) nor by its nature (deontological ethics), but instead merely by virtue of its being commanded by God. According to William of Ockham, probably the most famous proponent of Divine Command Theory, murder would have been moral had God commanded it; and moreover, it is hypothetically conceivable that God might “change His mind” and alter the moral order by deciding to start commanding murder.

By decoupling morality from rational analysis of the nature of acts and their consequences, then, Divine Command Theory implies that we cannot know moral truth except by divine revelation.

To many atheists, that is the sum of all religious ethics, especially religious sexual ethics: x is right and y is wrong simply because God says so. Christina committed this error throughout her lecture, referring to various religious teachings on sexuality as random sets of taboos. While atheists are free to ground moral judgment in human wellbeing, she explained, religious ethicists classify an act as right or wrong based on whether their sacred text tells them that “God likes it” or not.

That might not be such a mischaracterization of Divine Command Theory, and, in fairness, it is true that there have been prominent theologians who have embraced some version of theological voluntarism—the original Protestant Reformers, for instance, borrowed heavily from Ockham’s philosophy.

So a question that Francis’ acts raises for those who defend it because a pope is not subject to the law is whether a danger exists of repeating the error of volutarism. If Ockham and the Reformers were wrong to view God as transcending the law, is it not equally wrong to put the pope in that position? And for those intellectual conservatives who regularly blame Ockham and voluntarism for the collapse of Christendom, is it possible that a certain view of papal supremacy contributes to a similar dynamic, that of separating divine law from the institutions that are supposed to embody (even incarnate) it?

This question reminded me of a post that Ross Douthat wrote in response to David Bentley Hart about contemporary gnosticism and atheism.

Having spent a fair amount of time reading the various manuals of therapeutic spirituality for my recent book on American religion, I came away convinced that the Deepak Chopras and Eckhart Tolles and Elizabeth Gilberts are, indeed, enchanted “with the self in its particularity” — but that they’re also eager (desperately so, at times) to reconcile this enchantment with the God Within with the traditional monotheistic quest for the God Without, rather than treating one as a substitution for the other.

There’s no question which of the two Gods these authors ultimate privilege — hence the tendency toward spiritual solipsism that Hart rightly identifies. (If the God you find within disagrees with the God of your scriptures or your traditions, well, so much the worse for your scriptures or your traditions.) But this privileging does not amount to anything like a true denial of transcendance.

After reading this I thought some about private revelations and the rejection of such notions in the Reformed confessions. Scripture is the norm for Protestants. God stands above Scripture. He has not revealed everything in Scripture. But what he has revealed is true and it reflects his mind. It is not a shadow even if it does not reveal everything that God knows. For that reason, Protestants are very squeamish about adding to Scripture, whether private revelations or new writings or traditions of men.

But if you are not so bibliocentric, if you believe an apostle or an officer has access to truth that does not exist in Scripture (or even tradition), what standard do you have for evaluating whether the apostle or officer or tongues-speaker is speaking the truth? I don’t know if defenders of Francis worry about placing an authority beyond common or accepted standards of truth and goodness the way that Protestants have and do. But if they don’t, are they in danger of re-doing Ockham?

The State of Rome in the U.S.

Published on by D. G. Hart66 Comments

John Fea thinks this exchange between Stephen Coulbert Colbert and Garry Wills exhibits on Wills’ side a low church evangelical outlook. When I watched it, it sounded more like Luther. When do evangelicals ever invoke Augustine against transubstantiation — “to think we consume and eliminate the body of Christ”? No mention here of a conversion experience or sola Scriptura (though Wills does seem to know the Bible better than Coulbert Colbert who opened a can of worms when invoking Hebrews on Melchizedek).

What is worth noting is that both of these men grew up in the Roman Catholic church, still identify with Rome, and could not be more at odds on the very matters of faith that make Roman Catholicism Roman Catholic.

Update: and here is a Lutheran video, approved, recommended, and circulated by Fr. Z, that supports what the interview with Wills reveals.

Call or Shrug to Communion

Published on by D. G. Hart15 Comments

I have no doubt that if Bryan Cross were pope and the CTC converts were his Cardinals, the terms for ecumenical relations would be strict, clear, logical, and above all, paradigmatic. But I am not sure that the convictions and piety of CTC are dominant among those looking for greater harmony with Protestants. Just this morning I observed in our old home news weekly a notice for a series the local Roman Catholic parish was running on understanding the church’s teaching and faith. Father Robert Barron is teaching the series and he has a website and blog named very charismatically, Word on Fire. I took a look to see what he had written in his one post about Augustine and I found this:

St. Augustine, fifth century bishop of Hippo, held that original sin had produced a massa damnata (a damned mass) of human beings, out of which God, in his inscrutable grace, has deigned to pick a few privileged souls. Thus, Augustine clearly believed that the vast majority of the human race would be damned to hell. And though it makes me uncomfortable to admit it, my hero, St. Thomas Aquinas, followed Augustine in holding that a very large number of people are Hell-bound; he even taught that among the pleasures that the saints in heaven enjoy is the contemplation of the suffering of the damned!

But eventually along came Balthasar, who through the influence of Barth, found a way around such difficult teachings:

In the twentieth century, the Protestant theologian Karl Barth moved back in Origen’s direction and articulated a more or less universalist position on salvation. He maintained that the cross of Jesus had saved the world and that the church’s task was to announce this joyful truth to everyone. The Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar was a friend of Barth’s and a fellow Swiss, and he presented a somewhat Barthian teaching on this score, though he pulled back from complete universalism. Balthasar argued that, given what God has accomplished in Christ, we may reasonably hope that all people will be saved. The condemnation of apokatastasis compelled him to draw back from saying that we know all will be saved, but his keen sensitivity to the dramatic power of the cross convinced him that we may entertain the lively and realistic hope that all people will eventually be drawn into the divine love.

This lets us view Heaven as a party:

Think of God’s life as a party to which everyone is invited, and think of Hell as the sullen corner into which someone who resolutely refuses to join the fun has sadly slunk. What this image helps us to understand is that language which suggests that God “sends” people to Hell is misleading. As C.S. Lewis put it so memorably: the door that closes one into Hell (if there is anyone there) is locked from the inside not from the outside. The existence of Hell as a real possibility is a corollary of two more fundamental convictions, namely, that God is love and that human beings are free. The divine love, freely rejected, results in suffering. And yet, we may, indeed we should, hope that God’s grace will, in the end, wear down even the most recalcitrant sinner.

My suspicion is that relations with Protestants are a lot easier if Father Barron is leading the discussion instead of Bryan Cross. The loss of the threat of hell as the place where schismatics go also sure helps to grease the skids for dialogue and communion. But I am not sure it is much of a call to communion.

How Discerning the Call!

Published on by D. G. Hart64 Comments

I understand that the CTCers would like to see all the conservative Presbyterians and Reformed Protestants swim the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to embrace the holy pontiff (though I suppose the former Protestants will have to towel off first). But I wonder if they ever consider that the Protestants with whom Rome finds ecumenical relations are the liberal communions who ordain women, have interpreted and interpreted away the churches’ confessions, and who turn a blind eye to a woman’s right to choose. Here is news (thanks to our mid-Western correspondent):

In a monumental occasion for ecumenical relations, the U.S. Roman Catholic church and a group of Protestant denominations plan to sign a document on Tuesday evening to formally agree to recognize each other’s baptisms.

Catholic leaders will join representatives from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Christian Reformed Church in North America, Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ at the ceremony in Austin, Texas, to sign the agreement, which is called the “Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism.” The event coincides with the national meeting of Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A.

Currently, the Protestant churches recognize Roman Catholic baptisms, but the Catholic church does not always recognize theirs. The mutual agreement on baptisms, a key sacrament in the churches, has been discussed between denominational leadership for seven years and hinges in part on invoking trinity of the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” during the baptism. . . .

The Roman Catholic church as a whole has generally recognized the baptisms of most mainstream Christian denominations since the Second Vatican Council, a series of historic church meetings from 1962 to 1965, but the formal baptism agreement is the first of its kind for the U.S. church.

Is warm relations with liberal Protestants really what the Call is about? Then again, Rome could simply be imitating evangelicals who have always been squeamish about drawing lines between conservative and liberal Christians.

Whose Virtue, Which Ethicist

Published on by D. G. Hart177 Comments

Apparently, my reaction to Brad Gregory’s chapter on ethics went the way of Facebook updates. So let me return to the subject of Roman Catholicism and Aristotle.

Out of curiosity, I went over to Called to Communion to see what the folks there have to say about Aristotle. I ran across this from Mr. Cross himself:

That is why Aristotle is so important. Aristotle shows how from what we already know through our common human experience of the world, we can understand virtue and vice, and their epistemic grounding in philosophical truths about human nature and the human person. Our shared human nature provides the shared rational framework and criteria by which to adjudicate between various hypotheses, and so reason together. It is only by this mutual participation in rationality that Hitchens and Wilson can criticize each other’s positions, in something more than a solipsistic way. What both are missing, is Aristotle. And that is why watching them debate is like watching the skeptic Sextus Empiricus debate Nicolas of Autrecourt, whose fideism was condemned by the Catholic Church in the fourteenth century. So when I reflect on ten years of teaching Aristotle, in light of my position twenty years ago, I see the way in which Aristotle provides an important philosophical understanding of nature, the very nature that grace perfects and upon which grace builds.

This comes in the context of the debates between Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson, where Bryan Cross’ veneration of philosophical certainty leads him to conclude that “there is no common rational ground by which to adjudicate between the positions of Wilson and Hitchens. That is why Hitchens is exactly right when he says, “There is no bridge that can suffice.” (6:39) . . . . If one’s whole epistemic edifice is built upon a mere leap-in-the-dark assumption, as Wilson’s is, then since nothing can be any more certain than that upon which it rests, one still does not get any certainty.”

Well, where exactly is the common ground between Aristotle and Paul (or Jesus for that matter, or the Magnificat while I’m at it) when it comes to good works? Christians believe (or are supposed to) that sinners can’t be good apart from grace. But Aristotle is all about virtue apart from grace. How could he be otherwise, since he knew nothing about grace? This doesn’t mean we need to throw Athens overboard in good Tertullian fashion. We do happen, this side of glory, to live with a lot of people who do not have grace. So finding ways that they can be good apart from grace is useful at least for proximate ends of communities and neighborhoods. Still, at the end of the day what Aristotle and Thomas meant by virtue is a long way apart thanks to the advent of Christ.

And by the way, curious is the charge that Protestants are wrong to appeal to Paul apart from papal approval but Roman Catholic teachers of virtue may appeal to a pagan without the slightest criticism.

I also ran across a defense of transubstantiation at Called to Communion that made an interesting point about historical development. To the charge that Rome’s teaching on transubstantiation depends on Aristotelian metaphysics, the blogger appealed to Jaroslav Pelikan:

. . . the application of the term “substance” to the discussion of the Eucharistic presence antedates the rediscovery of Aristotle. In the ninth century, Ratramnus spoke of “substances visible but invisible,” and his opponent Radbertus declared that “out of the substance of bread and wine the same body and blood of Christ is mystically consecrated.” Even “transubstantiation” was used during the twelfth century in a nontechnical sense. Such evidence lends credence to the argument that the doctrine of transubstantiation, as codified by the decrees of the Fourth Lateran and Tridentine councils, did not canonize Aristotelian philosophy as indispensable to Christian doctrine.

So, Called to Communion recognizes that Aristotelian metaphysics may be a problem. But Aristotelian ethics are okay?

This was not the historical point, though. Since Roman Catholicism of the Protestant era was heavily dependent on Aristotelian ethics (see Gregory and Alasdair MacIntyre), and since the West did not really appropriate Aristotle until the medieval renaissance associated with Aquinas and the rise of universities, just how ancient is the ethical framework that rejected Luther and Calvin’s constructions? For all the talk about the ancient church and the early church fathers, do the Called to Communion folks believe that Ireneaus and Polycarp were thinking about the Christian life in Aristotelian categories?

I ask partly because I don’t know, partly because the way some put the past together looks remarkably arbitrary.

What Protestant Converts May Be Giving Up

Published on by D. G. Hart144 Comments

First, they may exchange ecclesiastical deism for purgatorial deism. So explains Peter Leithart:

Some years ago, Jacques Le Goff argued in The Birth of Purgatory that the notion of Purgatory as a place distinct from heaven and hell emerged only in the late twelfth century. Notions of purgation after death appear much earlier, but Le Goff claimed that the linguistic evidence pointed to a later development. Purgatorium replaced purgatorius ignis and purgatoriis locis between 1160 and 1180.

Le Goff’s book ignited a fiery battle among medievalists, but more recently Megan McLaughlin (Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France, 18-19) has defended Le Goff. While admitted that he may have overstated his thesis, she thinks Le Goff “essentially correct.” She adds, “While individual early medieval writers (notably the Venerable Bede) may have described something like Purgatory in their works, there was certainly no shared notion of a single place of purgation in the next world before the twelfth century.”

They may also leave behind a culture where Bible reading and study is the norm (even if in decline, thanks to all those enthusiastic ways of accessing the Spirit). Here is one reader’s response to an appeal for Roman Catholics to read the Bible regularly:

The personality and intellectual type that would read the Bible cover to cover and remember pivotal passages as Aquinas did… is rarely present in Catholicism. That’s why you’ll come across Popes urging Catholics to read the Bible for the past 150 years to no avail. The type person is gone from Catholicism. Aquinas was the last famous Catholic who exhibited an encyclopedic memorization of Scripture. His equals before him were Jerome and Augustine. After Aquinas some saints like St. John of the Cross know a lot of scripture but not nearly as much as Aquinas. The vast reading and memorization of Jerome, Aquinas and Augustine of the Bible later passes into some Protestant sects instead of continuing within Catholicism. You can find fundamentalist truck drivers from say “Holiness” church who have read and memorized hundreds of verses just as Aquinas did. The mystery is why did the Aquinas/ Jerome/ Augustine Bible habit stop within Catholicism and reappear in some…not all…Protestant sects. Read Aquinas’ Summa Theologica end to end and you’ll see him on average quote pivotal passages of scripture perhaps 5 times a page for several thousand pages of five volumes in some editions. If Aquinas suddenly returned to earth, he would enjoy more, a week of conversing with a Billy Graham type than he would conversing with a Catholic with a Masters in Theology but who had not yet read even 20% of the Bible…nor memorized much of that. Why did the Bible habit exist in Aquinas but later pass into Protestant sects instead of remaining in Catholicism? We all know the switch involved the Reformation and the emphasis on the Council of Trent as corrective of lone Bible reading. But how did the flight from scripture become so thorough?

Why do the Callers at Called to Communion obscure these realities?