The Roots of the Conflict

Saint Ambrose

Back in the day Conservative Blog Rorate Caeli often had some postings worth the time to read.  That was before they brought on Richard Cippola and Peter Kwasniewski and Benedict Constable as “contributors” and level of rational analysis and critical thinking nose-dived. I like to read things that make me think and re-think my positions—especially if they contain new information I had not previously considered.  Rare to find that, however, these days on Rorate Cael which is usually as insightful as yesterday’s toast. However, I did see a posting last week entitled “The Condemnation of Action Française and the Birth of Vatican II” and was excited to read it.  The title held some possibility that it might be a significant article, or at least give me some more background on the current ever-widening schism between those of us who embrace the Council and those who reject it.  Unfortunately, I ear-marked it for later and by the time I got back to it, it had been taken down. 

Action Française was a Catholic right-wing political movement in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century France.  It was monarchist and it was deeply anti-Semitic, playing a significant role in the infamous Dreyfus affair. (The family of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre were tied to Action Française.)    The Third French Republic, The French government from the end of the Franco-Prussian War until France’s collapse in the face of Nazi expansion in 1940, was plagued by a lack of social cohesion that polarized French society and Action Française offered an agenda of national unity rooted in France’s historical Catholic culture.  This was opposed—and successfully—by the secularists on the Government’s political left but the rightists were able to offer an effective resistance to the much of the more extreme program of the left, or at least to block some of their proposed anti-clerical legislation. However not all in the Church were willing to sell their Catholicity to Action Française. In 1927 Action Française members were officially denied the sacraments and two years later Pope Pius XI condemned the movement in an effort for rapprochement with the secularist government. The Pope felt that certain right-wing politicians were using the Church for their own political ends rather than acting in good faith.  (The condemnation was lifted by Pius XII at the beginning of the Second World War.) 

The nouvelle théolgie was a movement among theologians—mostly French but also Belgian, Dutch, and Germans—that began about the same time as Action Française fell into disrepute with the Church. The liturgical renewal (some would call it a “revolution”) being born in the Abbeys of Maria Laach, Chevetogne, and Beuron was developing simultaneously as scholars began to study the ancient liturgical texts and better understand the relationship between Patristic theology and pre-13^th century rites. The nouvelle théolgie movement was a reaction against the neo-Thomism promoted by Leo XIII in Aeterni Patris that was so foreign to the ways the Church of the first millennium expressed its faith. Advocates of the nouvelle théolgie looked not to Saint Thomas Aquinas for their theological models but to the older Tradition, to the Fathers of the Church. 

Let me back up for a moment.  From the sub-Apostolic age (approximately 100AD until “The Twelfth-Century Renaissance” the theological foundations of our Catholic faith were set out by a series of bishops and theologians collectively referred to as “The Fathers of the Church.”  The earliest of these is probably Ignatius of Antioch, the final father is Saint Bernard of Claivaux.  The list includes Iranaeus of Lyons, Ambrose, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory  Nazianzus,  and several dozen other early writers of the Eastern and Western Churches.  These “Fathers” all expressed their teachings in neo-Platonic philosophical terms because in both the Eastern and the Western Christian worlds the dominant way of thinking was neo-Platonism. Neo-Platonism was a “take” on Plato as he was understood and interpreted by Plotinus, a third century philosopher from Greek Egypt.  His philosophy shaped the way people in the Mediterranean world thought and expressed themselves for almost a thousand years.

In the 12^th century, mostly through contact with the world of Arab Philosophy, the West rediscovered Aristotle.  Aristotle had been a disciple of Plato in ancient Athens, but developed his own philosophical methods which depended on logical syllogisms.  Aristotle’s works had been lost in the Western world for centuries but were rediscovered by Arab philosophers in the tenth and eleventh century.  Most prominent among these philosophers was Ibn Sīnā  (or, as we in the West call him, Avicenna).   The cultural exchanges between Islam and the West in the 11^th and 12^th century led to Catholic philosophers becoming very excited about this new way of thinking.  Early Aristotelian thinkers like Peter Abelard were condemned by the Church, but Saint Thomas Aquinas successfully reinterpreted the teachings of the Fathers in this new Aristotelian method and it eventually won the favor of the hierarchy.   Gradually from the thirteenth through the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church abandoned the old neo-Platonic thought and replaced it with Aristotelian, or more commonly called today, Scholastic thought.  In the process, however, Catholic theologians depended less and less on the Fathers of the Church, replacing them with Saint Thomas and his disciples. It proved to be a serious disruption in Catholic intellectual life as the Fathers retreated (or were shoved) off to the sidelines of Catholic thought.

 In the mid-twentieth century advocates of the nouvelle théolgie urged a return to the Fathers as the basis of theological reflection.  An entire generation of theologians: Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Louis Bouyer, and Jean Daniélou embraced the new methodology.  Several of them suffered at the hands of the Holy Office (today’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and previously known as the Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition) under the indomitable Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani because of their abandonment of neo-Scholasticism but the new way of thinking was to prevail.  These were the men who shaped the thought of the Second Vatican Council.

A challenge has arisen in as much as the Councils of Trent and Vatican I drew on the neo-Scholastic way of thinking whereas Vatican II is shaped by the Patristic heritage.  The ideas of each sound strange, even heretical, to the other.  The neatly packaged syllogisms of Scholastic Theology are clear and precise but lack the mystical depth of the Patristic Tradition.  The theology of the nouvelle théolgie writers is not nearly as sharply delineated and narrowly defined as the work of the Neo-Scholastics but have the antiquity of Tradition to their defense.  As a result the Church has lost the intellectual cohesion of the pre-Conciliar days.  Some of us can live with that ambiguity; others struggle.  Much of the conflict in the Church today is rooted in this theological diversity. 

Pope Francis, Two Churches, A Bridge Too Far--Some Further Thought

I have written in several recent postings that we have seen over the past 35 years that a Church has grown within the Church, a counter-Church as it were or even an anti-Church, that is becoming increasingly hostile to its host body and a threat to its welfare and mission.  During the pontificates of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI this counter-Church had reason to think that it would absorb its host body and become the predominant form of Roman Catholicism in a post-Vatican II (read: a forgotten and abandoned Council) world, but the papacy of Pope Francis has checked its progress and questioned its legitimacy.  As Francis moves forward with his agenda for the Church in his pontificate, some in the counter-Church fear that a bridge too far will force them to take a stand against Francis and those Catholics who adhere to his vision for the Church in the third millennium.  I had written in an earlier posting that the earmarks of this counter-Church and its adherents include: 

1. Refusal under any or most circumstances to participate in the Mass, Sacraments, and Rites of the Church in the “Ordinary Form.” 

2.     Rejection of the Post-Conciliar Rites and not only the Mass but especially an insistence that Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Matrimony, and funerals be performed according to the pre-conciliar ritual.  Some extremists would also insist that Holy Orders be administered according to the pre-conciliar rites. 

3.     An insistence that children be catechized according to the pre-conciliar catechism (in the United States, the Baltimore Catechism).

4.     A conviction that the (traditional) Catholic Church is the One True Church founded by Jesus Christ and is the exclusive channel of Christ’s grace outside of which salvation is impossible or, at the very least, unlikely. 

5.     A conviction that the Church and “the world” are at enmity and that the Catholic minimize contact with the larger culture; collaboration of the Church for some supposed “common good” with those outside of the Church, either secular or believing but non-Catholic being against the mission of the Church.

6.     A conviction that the Church, as the Kingdom of Christ, “is not of this world” and therefore has no business in politics, economics, or other social spheres.   

Despite the first two earmarks I list being concerned with the “old” versus the “new” liturgy, I do not think that the major issue is the pre-conciliar liturgy versus the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.  There are many Catholics who for reasons ranging from an aesthetic preference to a pretentious taste for the arcane attend the usus antiquior.  (My own pretentious taste for the arcane leads me to prefer this designation for the pre-conciliar Rites.)   I think the tension between the two forms of worship mask the real issue: two very different theologies, cosmologies, and anthropologies and these, in turn, are rooted in the differing philosophical foundations of 19^th century Catholicism (neo-Scholastic) and Conciliar Catholicism (neo-Patristic) as described in those recent postings. 

Different cosmologies.  There are those who see the world ordered hierarchically with power at the top and subservience in the lower ranks.  In a well ordered universe each person is in his or her proper place in the Great Chain of Being and, save some minor adjustments in the social order, one stays in one’s place.  People who subscribe to this sort of cosmology like hierarchy (and are therefore often fascinated by monarchy in the socio-political order).  Obedience and conformity are paramount to them; change is anathema because it undermines the eternally fixed hierarchical order of things.  Law and retributive justice keep everything in balance.   On the other end of the spectrum—and it is most often a spectrum, not two sharply divided camps—there are those who see the universe as an organic reality, a body as it were.  Positions are not fixed but, like the stars revolve and circulate with some rising and some falling through the course of their existence.  Different members of the body in their various functions may have greater or lesser dignity but are not of greater or lesser worth.  Power, such as it is, is distributed throughout the body with each member taking responsibility for his or her own contribution to the good of the whole.  In this fluid order of things, change is taken for granted and seen to be a healthy sign of development of the body.  The political ideal for such people is not democracy as one might expect, but more a corporatism in which all are involved in working for and establishing the common good but sometimes in different ways or with different roles.  (I think this is a lovely ideal, but am myself a proponent of democratic government because, while it is less faithful than corporatism to the organic vision of society, it is its most practical political manifestation.)

Theologies.  Those who espouse a hierarchically ordered universe will see God at the top of the pyramid.  As God is at the top, access to him is granted more easily to those at the top.  (I love the line in Anne of a Thousand Days when King Henry says: “I am the King of England; when I pray, God listens!)  Popes and bishops—good popes and good bishops, that is, not these soft-on-divorce-soft-on-queers false shepherds of today—are of course closer to God than those further down the ladder.  God is and remains totally "other."  When I pray to him I need to face away from the world and face him.  I need to approach him with the courtesy and ritual of the royal court as he is the supreme King and I am but a servant.   On the other hand—and end of the spectrum—are those who see God as the Origin of all creation and the Destiny of all creation.  Avoiding pantheism—the idea that creation or the material universe is somehow God’s “skin” or that he is a universal Spirit who inhabits his own creation—there are those who see that God resides in the depths of his creation, and most particularly in the depths of the human heart.  This leads to a very different approach to prayer in general and liturgical prayer in particular.  The one mentality sees liturgy as court ceremonial for the Great King who rules the universe; the other mentality is drawn to the communal nature of the liturgy that has a more incarnational dimension and even a mystical impression. 

Anthropologies.  The one way of looking at things, the hierarchical, stresses the un-crossable divide between the Divine and the human.  God is Divine and we, for our part, bear the burden of our fallen human nature.   We stand as sinners before the Judge, hoping for mercy but aware of the demands of Divine Justice.  Our sins demand atonement by the sacrifice of God’s Divine Son, the only victim whose innocence can balance our wickedness, but even so retributive justice demands that punishment awaits us for our sins—if not in the sufferings of this life, then in purgatory.  The other perspective, emphasizing the idea of theosis or divinization, is to see the human person to remain clearly, beneath the veneer of sin, the image and likeness of God.  This anthropology sees the human person to be and remain essentially good, despite sin and failings, and through the redemption won by Christ and the sanctification accomplished by the Holy Spirit restored in the sight of God by grace to an original integrity.  These two different anthropologies  will created two very different approaches to the spiritual life.  The Sacrament of Reconciliation, in particular, will have entirely different meanings for those in each group.

We have two different liturgies because the usus antiquior is totally incomprehensible to those whose anthropology, theology, and cosmology follows the one model and the Reformed Rites of Vatican II undermine the entire belief system of those who hold to the other.  And now, with Pope Francis having picked up the themes of the Council and moving the Church forward in that direction, we see that those who hold to the neo-Scholastic world view are increasingly threatened that the foundation is being pulled out from beneath them.  Anger towards the Holy Father is mounting.  Cardinal Burke’s vague promise to “resist” Pope Francis should he cross the bridge too far—in this case to provide some pastoral solution that would grant those in irregular unions access to the sacraments—has been a call to the barricades for many who had falsely read the ambiguities of John Paul and Benedict to be the promise of a restoration of the pre-conciliar world and whose hopes are now being dashed.  It is in fact putting Cardinal Burke in a very uncomfortable position as he knows the limits his “resistance” can take and those limits will render the “resistance” of little effect.  At the same time, the disappointment of those who are putting their trust in the Cardinal to restore the Humpty Dumpty of a well-regulated hierarchical Church in a well-regulated hierarchical world will turn vicious.