Of Rainbow Shamrocks and Protestant Parades

Great parade yesterday up Fifth Avenue and past Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.  Cardinal Dolan was the Grand Marshal.  Previous Grand Marshals include Governor Al Smith, (first Catholic to run for President of the United States)1925; Mayor Jimmy Walker (1932); Mayor Robert Wagner (1954); Governor Hugh Carey (1976); Cardinal John J. O’Connor (1996); Maureen O’Hara (1999); and Cardinal Edward Egan (2002).   There was some controversy because for the first time in parade history a LGBT group, Out@NBCUniversal marched under their own banner.   (It would be naïve—at the least—to think this was the first time gays marched in the parade.)   While openly gay participation in the past has been blocked, Grand Marshal Cardinal Dolan made a point of saying that he thought it a wise decision to make the parade more “inclusive” and that he welcomed everyone.  The Krazies, of course, are furious but then anger is their mother’s milk. 

I only watched the first half hour or so of the parade, but one curious factoid I heard implied it (wasn’t actually said) that this parade has always been a Catholic celebration.  The panel of NBC commentators were remarking on the history of the parade which originally was in lower Manhattan.  (In the eighteenth century today’s midtown site of the parade was nothing more than open fields and “truck gardens” that supplied the city with food.)  One of the commentators, admittedly I don’t remember who, remarked that this was because the Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was in Greenwich Village.  Two problems.  The Old Saint Pat’s is not in the Village but on Mulberry Street in what would become Little Italy and is now Chinatown.  But the more egregious mistake is that while the parade dates back to 1762, the Cathedral was built only in 1809-1815.  You see, despite the implication—and the common historical misperception—the parade was not originally a Catholic sponsored event.  To the contrary: those who marched in the first parade of 1762 were all Protestants.  And such would have been the case for the first twenty or more years—it was a Protestant event.  In fact it was at least predominately a Protestant event well into the 19^th century.

The first Saint Patrick’s Day parade in New York was comprised of Irish soldiers in the British Army.  Until 1778 Catholics were prohibited from joining the army (and their commissioning as officers was even later).  In fact, while all other churches and religions, even Judaism, were legally tolerated, it was illegal to be a Catholic in New York until the 1777 State Constitution that marked independence from Great Britain. 

The 1737 Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, generally considered the first in the colonies—and thus the oldest American Parade to honor Ireland’s national saint, was also comprised of Irish Protestants who had immigrated to Massachusetts.  Irish nationalism in the 18^th century—and the Saint Patrick Day Parades were celebrations of Irish Identity and Nationalism within the British Empire—was not a Catholic phenomenon but a Protestant one.  The Catholics had been so beaten down by the Penal Laws, and especially so in Ireland after the 1688 victory of William of Orange over the Catholic James II, in the British Empire that they were a political non-entity.  The principal advocates of Irish Nationalism from William Molyneaux to Jonathan Swift to Henry Grattan to Samuel Nielson to Wolfe Tone to Robert Emmet were all Protestants as would later be Charles Stewart Parnell, and literary figures W.B Yeats, Lady Gregory, and Seán O’Casey.  And the artist and indomitable Irish revolutionary, Baroness Markievicz, who advised her female admirers to: “Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver,” was Protestant until she was in her 50’s when she was received into the Catholic Church. 

 Two of the first four Presidents of Ireland, Douglas Hyde and Erskine Childers were Protestants.  By no means has Irish Nationalism been a exclusively—or even predominately—Catholic phenomenon.

In those pre-Revolutionary (and Protestant) days in America, Saint Patrick’s Day was marked by the Irish in the larger colonial cities such as New York by dinners in the more elegant taverns such as Bolton and Sigel’s, now known as Fraunces Tavern.  For a day such as St. Patrick’s Day they would feast on oysters, lobster, turtle soup, cod, duck, goose, venison, and smoked hams.  Meats would be eaten roasted, or potted, or cooked in pasties—pies and hot-pockets.  Winter vegetables would include turnip, parsnips, carrots, squashes and winter cabbage.   Apples and pears conserved from the previous autumn would be pricey but available and a wide variety of summer fruits would have been put up into jams that might be served as is or used as fillings for pies.  Hard cider was the most common drink, but ales and beers would be common enough as well as rum imported from Jamaica and home-distilled whiskies.  Alcoholic beverages were drunk with no thought of moderation, especially for celebrations like today’s feast.  Desserts would include a variety of pies, sweetmeats (candied fruits), nuts, and boiled puddings such as whitepot, figgy pudding, or plum duff.  There were also such puddings as flummery, syllabub, and blancmange.  Celebrants would sit down to dinner midafternoon and the feast would last into the night or as long as the alcohol held out. 

It was only in the 1820’s that Catholic Irish began to migrate to New York in significant numbers and the floodgates opened with the Great Famine after 1846.  The second half of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth were the high-water mark of Catholic Irish immigration.  The “established Irish,” Protestant and Catholic, did not particularly welcome the immigrants who were of much lower social and educational status.  The Catholics were embarrassed by their immigrant co-religionists and the Protestants disowned them completely thinking them to be superstitious savages. But the immigrants were quick to organize themselves in an effort to better themselves by mutual help.  Among their first acts was to organize a separate Saint Patrick’s Day Parade which they had done by 1858.  Immigrant Irish participation in the Northern cause of the American Civil War not only united the Irish among themselves but gave them a certain political clout in New York and other Northern cities.  By the end of the Civil War the New York Parade was firmly under the control of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an immigrant association formed to fight the prejudices against (Irish) immigrants that had been strong in the decade immediately before the Civil War. From that time on the New York Saint Patrick’s Day Parade has been firmly in the hands of Irish Catholics, yet it has always been a civic parade and not a religious procession.  Never in its history has it been a religious procession and while there was an active policy of excluding groups identified with the LGBT movement these forty years and more since the gay liberation movement has appeared, the exclusion of LGBT marchers or groups certainly can’t be argued on religious grounds.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church LXVI

restored rood screen in Rochester Cathedral

 There are so many interesting things to comment on.  I heard an interview on the radio today about the situation of Rome’s street people and how it has improved under Pope Francis.  A homeless man said: “I hate to say this, but under Pope Benedict it was not so good—today, Pope Francis has done so much more to expand the charities for the poor here in Rome.”  It does say something about how the two different papacies relate to the world beneath the papal window—or what once was the papal window.  And then I saw something on the Rorate Caeli blog (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com) about the end of “The Reform of the Reform”—a giving up of efforts to reconcile the 1970 Novus Ordo with the Mass of Pius V, or to put it another way, an abandonment of the myth of the “hermeneutic of continuity.”  I have always maintained that the only people who understand what Paul VI in issuing the Novus Ordo are those who are opposed to it. All due respect to Pope Benedict XVI, but the hermeneutic of continuity is historically and theologically faulty.  But I am not going there, at least not now.  I am determined to do at least a week on the developments within the Anglican Church as we are, with the accession of Edward VI in 1547, at a critical juncture.

Henry VIII resisted any doctrinal changes and, other than the dissolution of the monasteries and the dismantling of many shrine-tombs of various saints—and especially that of Thomas Becket—kept the Church of England pretty much intact with its centuries of received tradition.  And the dismantling of the shrines was primarily for the treasure attached to them.  The liturgy remained unchanged, the clergy were forbidden to marry, and Protestant doctrine was hunted down and punished with all the vigor it suffered in Spain under the Inquisition.  What is surprising, given Henry’s reluctance to allow religious change, is that Henry was quite careless about what would happen after his death.  He certainly did not plan for Protestantism to be introduced into England.  He left a considerable amount of monies for Masses to be offered for his soul which indicates that he thought that the Church of England would remain Catholic if not papal.  What he neglected to do was to make sure that his heirs were Catholic.  While his daughter Mary was a rabid Catholic—and papalist—his son and heir, Edward, had been raised Protestant.  And his daughter Elizabeth—who would prove to be his most significant heir—likewise was raised Protestant.  His sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, was a convinced Protestant as well and she had huge influence over the children, especially Elizabeth.  Edward also spent time in her household, but for the most part was in the care of his uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, who was a convinced Protestant.

Edward was only nine when his father died and he came to the throne.  Henry had appointed a Council of Regency to govern the country until Edward’s majority.  The Council included members of both Catholic and Protestant theologies, but the stronger men on the Council, especially Seymour and Archbishop Cranmer, were staunchly Protestant.  With  the new king’s Protestant bias and the strong arming of Seymour, Cranmer, and Dudley (who was to be made Duke of Northumberland), the Catholic party did not stand a chance and Reform began almost at once.  Legislation was passed ordering the destruction of images in the churches.  Rood screens (wooden or stone screens, topped by a crucifix and images of Mary and John that separated the choir and sanctuary from the nave) were demolished.  In many places the stained glass windows were smashed and replaced by clear glass or by the same colored pieces but reinserted in random order.  By the following year, Cranmer had devised a English language communion rite inserted into the Mass and mandated that the faithful were to be given communion in both kinds (the bread and the cup.)  Later that same year, the Privy Council abolished the use of candles on Candlemas (February 2^nd, the Purification), Ashes on Ash Wednesday, Palms on Palm Sunday, and the veneration of the Cross on Good Friday.  This was preparatory for more drastic changes in 1549 when an entire new liturgy—all in English—replaced the traditional Latin forms of the Mass.  This 1549 marks the first time the liturgy was standardized throughout the realm.  (Remember that England did not follow the Roman Rite but had several unique rites of its own—Sarum, York, Bangor, and Hertford.)  In general impression and matters external, the revised Liturgy did not differ much from the traditional Mass.  Altars and vestments were retained, though there was a provision for the celebrant to wear a cope rather than a chasuble should he wish.  There was no prohibition of incense or holy water.  The Liturgy retained the familiar order: introit, Kyrie, Gloria, epistle, gospel, creed, Sanctus, Consecration, Lord’s Prayer, Agnus Dei, Communion, and Blessing.  The priest remained at the altar facing away from the congregation, the people came to the sacrament and received kneeling.  It was a somewhat simpler service. On closer examination one could see that Cranmer had removed every reference to the Eucharist as a sacrifice from the prayers.  People were encouraged to communicate weekly which was a departure from the medieval practice where many—if not most—only received the Sacrament once a year. 

A very dramatic change—and perhaps, other than the change from Latin to English, the most dramatic change—was that the communicants not only received from the chalice but were instructed to receive the host (the Eucharistic wafer) in their hands.  This undoubtedly caused many to refrain from Communion entirely and presented a challenge to Cranmer’s goal of increasing communions. 

The 1549 Liturgy was seen as a first step towards a more radically reformed liturgy.  Cranmer never intended it to be the final form of worship in the Church of England.  In fact, it would only serve for three years and it would, in the meantime, cause a severe reaction in parts of the country that were more conservative.  On the other hand in the cities and towns, as well as in Kent, people were more open to Protestant ideas and the new liturgy was well received there.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church LXIII

The Shrine of St. Frideswide at

Christ Church, Oxford

The despoiling of the monasteries was the most important part of Henry’s scheme to get the Church’s wealth into the royal pocket, but it wasn’t his only one.   In 1538 he undertook an attack on many of the shrines that adorned English cathedrals and churches.  The most significant of these was the dismantling of the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

Canterbury Cathedral with its tomb of Becket was one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Europe, surpassed in popularity only by the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome and the shrine of Saint James at Compostela in Galicia, (today’s north-western Spain).  Of course, Henry was no devotee of Thomas Becket, the embodiment of the Church’s independence from the Crown.  This may have been the riskiest part of Henry’s entire re-organization of the Church of England.  Becket was an immensely popular saint among the English and his cult was of immense economic significance to many not only in Canterbury itself but along the pilgrimage roads that led there.  Yet such a symbol of Church resistance to royal authority could not be allowed to remain in the English consciousness.  In September 1538 the shrine containing Becket’s body was destroyed and the votive offerings—jewels, gold, silver, candelabra, and other ornaments were confiscated.  It took 21 carts to carry the treasure up to London from Canterbury.

Becket’s shrine was not the only one dismantled by Henry’s commissioners.  During the negotiations for a marriage between Henry and the German princess, Anne of Cleves, there was some ambiguous signs of Church reform in the direction of Lutheran theology.  (Anne was Lutheran.)  Some historians put too much emphasis on this and one has to be careful in analyzing what exactly was happening.  Henry was never a fan of Lutheranism.  He had written his book Defense of the Seven Sacraments in 1521 defending traditional Catholic theology against Luther and Henry was not one to backtrack and admit that he might have been wrong.  He would stay quite theologically orthodox (by Catholic standards) for the remainder of his life though he neither made plans to keep the Church faithful to its Catholic roots after his death nor did he seem to exercise much vigilance over his theological advisors even in his lifetime, allowing sympathizers with the “new ideas” to occupy key positions in his government and, in the case of Cranmer, in the Church.  What I mean to say is that by the early 1530’s Henry had pretty much delegated oversight of religious matters to Thomas Cromwell who did have Lutheran leanings and used his position to further the careers of other crypto-protestants.  Moreover, Cromwell worked closely with Archbishop Cranmer, who also had strong Protestant sympathies, though both Cromwell and Cranmer were wise enough not to push publicly against the King’s conservative policies.  Nevertheless, by 1538 and with the negotiations proceeding over the Cleves marriage, there was the opportunity for some minor reforms.  These were mainly the suppression of shrines, images, and roods. 

In July 1538 the image of Our Lady was taken from the shrine dedicated to her at Walsingham in Norfolk along with the votives that the faithful had left there.  This was a particularly popular shrine and had been for several centuries.  The shrine of Saint Frideswide in the Oxford priory named after her (and now Christ Church Cathedral in the College of that same name) was destroyed about the same time.  The shrines of Saint Swithin at Winchester, St Hugh at Lincoln, St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St Ethelredea at Ely we all destroyed between 1538 and 1539 with their treasure confiscated by the royal treasury. 

The same time that the destruction of the shrines and various spurious relics was carried out, some took advantage of the situation and used the opportunity to destroy various statues and images.  This was not done on a wide scale, but neither was the destruction confined to one or two isolated incidents.  Much valuable religious art was lost in this period as windows were smashed, statues burned or smashed, gold and silver melted down; but it would be nothing akin to the destruction that would happen after Henry’s death when there was a systematic attack on images by the more extreme policies enacted under Henry’s son and successor, Edward VI. 

The reaction to the destruction of the shrines and images resulted in the Act of the Six Articles which reaffirmed belief in

1.    the doctrine of transubstantiation

2.    communion in one kind

3.    clerical celibacy

4.    observance of religious vows of chastity

5.    private masses

6.    auricular confession

This was a step back from Protestantism and the remainder of Henry’s reign would see the preservation of Catholic practices such as the Traditional Liturgy/Latin Mass, Eucharistic Worship, cult of Mary and the saints, the practice of seven sacraments, maintenance of traditional church vestments and ornaments, the use of crucifixes and images.    Meanwhile, however Cranmer and other secret Protestants devoted themselves to research and study to prepare for the day when the Church of England could be openly Protestant.  Thomas Cromwell, meanwhile, was attainted for treason and beheaded at the Tower of London on July 28^th 1540.  Remarkably, he who had used his offices to destroy the monasteries and to further the Protestant cause, professed to die “in the traditional faith.” 

Substantive Religion And Modern Bias

Same Sex Marriage is a challenge to traditional

Christianity but it also may give us the impetus to

look anew at our faith and ask the questions that

will preserve our Tradition without embalming it.

I saw an article in the New York Times yesterday that piqued my curiosity because it spoke of rabbis and Christian clergy who will perform weddings for couples of the same sex but not when they are of mixed religion.  It struck me as peculiar that a rabbi or minister who was not inhibited about gay marriage would stumble on the issue of mixed faith.  Let me first say that as a Catholic I accept the sacramental theology of our Church that speaks of the Sacrament of Matrimony as being between one man and one woman, each of whom is free of previous marriage commitments and is able to make the commitment to enter into this Sacramental Bond which represents the love between Christ and his Church and who are open to the gift of life springing from their Sacramental bonds.  That is the Sacrament of Matrimony, or what might be called specifically “Christian Marriage.”  On the level of civil law, however, I am no more opposed to same-sex marriage than I am to the civil bonds that unite people who have been divorced or who otherwise would be ineligible for the Sacramental bonds of Matrimony.  I don’t expect the civil law to follow Catholic theology in a pluriform society.   In the same regard, I don’t expect religious communities, Christian or otherwise, who have not developed a sacramental theology to understand why we Catholics see the bonds of Matrimony as representing sacramentally the Mystery of Christ’s Love for his Church or God’s Love for humankind.  There are some theological points which are uniquely Catholic or which are shared with those Churches that one might say are “at the Catholic end of the Christian spectrum.” There are many points in which I am in disagreement with my Protestant or Jewish friends—or agnostic friends, for that matter—but while I disagree I don’t find it necessary to be disagreeable.  Or, actually, while I enjoy being disagreeable—one of my friends often refers to me as a curmudgeon—I do it for fun (or just “for the hell of it”) and not for principle.  I stand up for what I believe, but I don’t use it as an excuse to be hateful.   

I have friends who are in same-sex marriages.  I have friends who are good Christians who are in same-sex marriages.  I have friends who are devout practicing Catholics, who are in same-sex marriages.  Given the legal advantages to civil marriage—and understanding the emotional and spiritual depths of public commitment—I see why they felt a deep desire to take this step.  None of my Catholic friends seem to have any resentment that the Church doesn’t recognize the sacramental nature of their relationship, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t experience God’s grace coming from—and for—their commitment to each other. 
I also have friends who are interfaith marriages—both Catholic/Protestant and Catholic/Jewish marriages.  My brother is a devout Catholic married to a woman who calls herself a Methodist—though for years she has faithfully attended Mass with my brother and her children—and been more involved in their parish than most Catholics.  Some of my friends in inter-faith marriages practice their religion; others do not.  I was curious in The New York Times article why clergy have difficulty in performing an inter-faith marriage when they don’t have a problem with same-sex marriage.
Then I read the following paragraph about the couple the article used to anchor the story. 

As their October 13^th wedding date neared Ms. Knapp and Ms. Corey turned to a friend who was ordained online by the Universal Life Church.  The ceremony, held at a conference center, included the chuppa, the Jewish wedding canopy and the breaking of the glass.  The Sheva  Brachot (seven blessings), though, drew from Apache and Buddhist sources, among others.  In recognition of Ms. Knapp’s Irish heritage, one blessing was a Gaelic prayer.

The article explained that Ms. Knapp was born and raised Catholic but currently is a Presbyterian and studying for the ministry.  Ms. Corey’s religious background is Reformed Judaism.  Now, while I am a Catholic, I like the chuppa and the breaking of the glass—and even the seven blessings.  I have no problem with any of them.  There is a liturgical text for the seven blessings and they are lovely prayers.  They do not come from Apache and Buddhist sources or even Gaelic Prayers.  They come from a very fixed tradition, though, while it would take some twists and turns of tradition, I supposed they could be adapted for a same-sex couple. 

Maybe this is why clergy have difficulty with some inter-faith marriages.  There is a point at which the faith being expressed is neither Jewish nor Christian but, while perhaps expressing lovely sentiments, stands apart from either or both Traditions.  We Americans have a long heritage of reducing faith to feelings.  American religion is too often nothing more than what “I feel” rather than the conviction expressed by countless religious figures throughout the centuries—perhaps typified by the words of one of them, Martin Luther, who declared: here I stand; I can do no other.  While I may not agree with Luther’s ideas—or, to be more precise, with some of his ideas—I cannot but admire his conviction to hold to truth rather than to sentiment. 
When I am at Mass some Sundays and I look around and see how few people in their 20’s and 30’s and 40’s are there, I think it may be precisely this problem of “faith” being reduced to feelings.   I hear this line that “I’m more spiritual than religious” all the time, but I am beginning to suspect that what they mean is “I want something that makes me feel good rather than to have convictions by which I can run my life.”  I am not saying that we need a list of dogmas with which to hit people over the head and make them conform to our particularly narrow views, but I do think that we need a Christianity that clearly proclaims the centrality of the Death and Resurrection of the Lord and not hide itself  beneath Apache aphorisms and Buddhist maxims.   There is no doubt that mainline Christianity has to wrestle with some important questions today regarding human sexuality, reproduction, and family life.  Advances in the reproductive sciences, in psychology, in anthropology, in sociology and just in the changes in our contemporary world require theology look anew at certain questions.  Theology is not a stand-alone science.  No field today is “stand alone.”  The reexamination of certain questions may lead to new answers and it may lead to new formulations for the same principles, but the door to investigation, analysis, and discussion must be opened and gone through.  But in the end, we cannot settle for emotive platitudes but must always come back to the basic tenets of a loving God who has created us, redeemed us, and continues to sanctify us.     

The Faith Your Don't Find In Catechisms

Saint John of the Cross

I had planned on going back to the subject of Peter Waldo, Cathars, etc so that we could bridge into the Innocentian Reformation—the Reform of the Church under Pope Innocent III which I think was the most successful Reformation of the Church to date, but then I found myself in a fascinating conversation that has made me stop and think anew about some contemporary issues especially as there is a link between this new topic on which I hope to reflect and the success of Innocent’s attempts to restore vitality to the Church in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. 
       This conversation came up at dinner on Tuesday when a Brazilian friend of mine was talking about his doctoral thesis in Spirituality at the Pontifical Gregorian University.  He is writing on a reexamination of the spiritual doctrine of Saint Francis de Sales from the perspective of the personalist philosophy of John Paul II.  His point is that “conversion” must involve not merely an intellectual assent to doctrine but a person-to-person encounter with Jesus Christ.  We had a fascinating conversation as I know relatively little about either Francis de Sales or the philosophy of the late and now Blessed Pope.  I know them both as historical figures, but not as intellectuals, but I was struck by the similarity with the ideas being attributed to them by my friend to the mystical theology of Saint John of the Cross with which I am somewhat famiiar.  I guess I should not have been so surprised, at least in regards to John Paul, as I believe he wrote his doctoral dissertation on John of the Cross and Faith.  In regard to the subject of Faith, John of the Cross makes a clear distinguishing between knowing about God and knowing God. 
       I am struck by how many people know a lot about God without necessarily “knowing” him, or more to the point, without knowing Jesus Christ because no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son has revealed him.   Faith to them is a matter of an assent of the intellect to theological propositions defined by the Church.  As I am writing this, I think in particular of a woman I had known some years ago when I was frequently in Leesburg Virginia.  This lady  was the local doyen of orthodoxy.  She rigorously critiqued every sermon, taped various priests and religious education speakers who had come to her parish to report them for suspicious ideas, and for years had controlled the religious education program in the local parish.  She had her small group of disciples and she used them to make sure the parish didn’t stray from what she perceived to be sound doctrine.  But alas, new brooms sweep clean and a new pastor displaced her stranglehold on things.  I have no doubt that she was (and perhaps, if yet alive, still is) a sincere person.  The problem was that for her faith equaled orthodoxy, or what she took for orthodoxy.  She could tell you all about what the Church (for her that meant the magisterium) taught about the faith, at least from Trent up to 1960, but I can’t say that I think she was a woman of faith.  She was a person of doctrine—but that is not a woman of faith.  Prayers were something one said.  “Spirituality” was comprised of no more than devotions—we had an argument about that once when she told me that “meditation is dangerous and you shouldn’t be practicing it, much less teaching it.”  Her fundamental moral compass was off in as that she had no scruples of taping a speaker without his (or her) permission, quoting them out of context in letters to the bishop, or even bearing false witness when she thought a religious education director, a speaker brought into the parish, a music minister or liturgical director was going off in what she thought to be a wrong direction.  Faith was orthodoxy; orthodoxy was faith.  There was no evidence of anything more than rigid doctrine and a rigid relationship to a rigid deity in her life.   She fit that description of Henri Bremond regarding Jansenism that I cited two or three days ago:  “Before penetrating into the depth of the mind Jansenism ruins the peace, condition of all true religion.  Before making converts it makes partisans, sectarians, whom it fatally severs from the mystical currents of their time.”  
       Unfortunately this woman is by no means unique.  The fault of classic Protestantism—at least the American variety—has been gross subjectivism: the triumph of emotion  over intellect.  But Catholicism, again at least the American variety, is no better off in its opposite of being strait-jacketed into doctrine.  All the doctrine in the world does not lead one to change of heart that is at the center of Jesus’ call in the Gospels.  That is why I was delighted to hear this Brazilian priest talk about Benedict XVI’s emphasis on evangelization as this personal encounter with Christ that is so transformative of the human person.  It is certainly not to be that raw subjectivism that I just attributed to the American Protestant tradition.  (I will do a few entries some day on John Wesley and how his own crisis of faith brought about this bizarre doctrine-less “faith” that marks American religion.)
       Now as to how this ties into our upcoming entry on the Innocentian Reformation.  The reign of Innocent III was marked by figures such as Francis of Assisi and Dominic de Guzman and others who, working within the perimeters of Catholic doctrine and just on the frontiers of institutional Catholicism  brought their contemporaries to this personal encounter with Christ that revived a religion that had been fading from the lives of everyday people and made Christian faith an exercise in actually shaping one’s life to the demands of the Gospel.  That is what we need today for renewal and that is what we rarely have.   At the end of the day the issue of faith is: do I take the Gospel for my rule of life.  Do I try to live not the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or the Documents of Vatican II, but the Gospel.  All due respect to those ICEL and Vox Clara people but it looks like their latest work isn’t succeeding in bringing faith to life any more than had the Latin Mass or the previous translation of the liturgy,  but if we are to be people of faith we had better find something that will.