Lead By Example

Francis is really shaking up the conservative wing of the Church because he has a very different understanding of the role of the Church in society.  Don’t misunderstand me.  Pope Francis is no liberal.  He shows no sign of compromise on key Catholic doctrines, whether in dogmatic or moral theology.  But his ecclesiology is fascinating.  Unlike his immediate predecessors who ultimately saw the role of the Church as Teacher of Truth to a world that is in darkness, Francis sees the role of the Church to accompany people in their search for faith.  He is far more dialogical in his style than was Pope Benedict or even Pope John Paul II.  This is maddening for those who want an Ecclesia docens (a teaching Church).  Francis’ reaching out to non-believers for honest and sincere dialogue would have been unthinkable even a year ago.  His remarks about sacraments and the remarried divorced, about gays, about those estranged from the Church and about so many other issues are remarkable not for any change of doctrine but for their open and honest appreciation of the complexity of the issues at hand.  I think this papacy signifies a shift from the Church of Power to the Church of Service that Cardinal Dulles mentioned for the third millennium in his book on the Catholicity of the Church.  And it certainly is making its point.  Francis has won an audience that Pope Benedict was never able to reach.  The crowds in St Peter’s square both for the Sunday Benediction and for the Wednesday audience are at all time highs.  Priests report more people starting to come back to Mass.  Non-Catholic religious leaders are reporting a thaw in relationships with Catholics which had stiffened in the last decade or so.  He is a somewhat homely little man, but there is no doubt that Francis, like his namesake saint, is a man who can draw people to Christ.  You don’t need to change the substance of the faith; you only need to offer it humbly rather than create the pretense you have Truth which is accessible to none outside your circle of the self-proclaimed elect. 

Do We Need a Vatican III?

Arnulfo di Cambio's statue of

Saint Peter in the Vatican Basilica

dressed in papal vestments

Yet another reason why the Church today stands in need of a contemporary Reformation is to clarify the role the Church has in the world.  Vatican II has not been a failure; what has been a failure is in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, a loss of courage as certain individuals have seen the implementation of the vision of the Council would be a threat to their position, their influence, or their personal faith.  Over these years since the Council we have heard many Catholics of weak faith or strong prejudice sound the lament of the Children of Israel for the fleshpots of Egypt.  “We had vocations before the Council.”  “There was reverence for the Eucharist before the Council.” “Churches were full before the Council.”  “We need to go back to the fleshpots of nuns in veils and fish on Fridays and mumbled masses in an arcane language that offer us a sense of ‘mystery’.”  Well, I wish the answers were that simple, but no only do I not want to go back to the slavery of a “faith” in which others will do the thinking for you, but I believe that if we had stood faithful the vision of the Second Vatican Council, the Church would be more vibrantly engaged in its divine mission than ever.  This is precisely the problem.  I obviously am a person who has a positive understanding of the Council and its vision as it was articulated in the papacy of Paul VI.  There are others who see the Council in need of the reinterpretation offered in the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI or who reject Vatican II completely with a return to the doctrine and practice of the pre-conciliar Church.   We have a bifurcated Church, with one branch looking backwards to a world of power and pomp and another looking forward into a new world and a new role for the church in the world.  We need a Reformation that can reestablish a consensus on the Church’s identity and mission.   First, I must say that I am not sure that such a consensus can be restablished, even by a “Vatican III.”  Just as in the years after the Council, let us say from 1965-1982, admittedly a somewhat arbitrary date, there was a small but firm group of Catholics who rejected all or many of the liturgical and canonical changes and the doctrinal developments of the Council;  now, in this period when those very fruits of the Council are being reevaluated, reinterpreted, and in some cases rescinded, there is a group of progressive Catholics, equally firm who cling to the changes and developments of that initial phase with an equal tenacity and are unwilling for any compromise that would turn back the clock one second.  I am not sure whether a reconciliation of these two extreme wings would ever be possible, but I know that we have to try.  We do not need uniformity in order to have unity.  Indeed, wide discretionary differences in non essentials is always a wise policy—though exactly what is discretionary and what is essential is itself a divisive issue.  Perhaps a recovery and a refocusing on spirituality—genuine spirituality not merely a souped-up piety—is the common ground on which we can begin.  Any renewal that is not constructed on a firm scriptural spiritual renewal is pointless and in fact will not succede in the much needed true renewal and reform of the Church.  
      The current situation is tragically reminiscent of the Church’s fateful mistake after the Fifth Lateran Council which was held in Rome from 1512-1517.     This Council, admittedly convoked with reluctance by Julius II—not one of the most holy men to sit on the Throne of Peter—and concluded under his successor, the no better Leo X Medici, passed a substantial corpus of much needed reform legislation.  Given that it concluded in March of 1517 and Luther issued his opening challenge on the last day of October that same year, it probably was too late to have prevented Luther’s Reformation, but had Lateran V been taken seriously and implemented, the doctrines of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, the Anabaptists, Zwingli and others may well not have found Europe a tinder-box and  spread like wildfire.  In fact, the reforms of the Council were never implemented.  Curial prelates and residential bishops alike saw that the mandated reforms undermined their power, their influence, and their wealth.  The price of reform was more than those with an invested interest in the institutional structures of the church were willing to pay.  Bishops, abbots, monks and priests, individuals, religious orders, cathedral chapters, and theological faculties, were granted exemptions, dispensations, and leaves permitting them to escape the onerous burdens of reform mandated by the Council.  All for fees and favors, of course.  As the inn-keeper Thernadier was inclined to sing:
"Doesn't cost me to be nice
But nothing gets you nothing
Everything has got a little price!"   
And so after much fanfare, the Council did not fulfill its dream.  There was a Reform, of course—a whole series of reforms— but reforms and reformers that fractured the unity of the Church in an attempt to restore its purity.  Sometimes today when I am lunching at Da Roberto in the Borgo Pio and I see a Cardinal hosting an Argentine bishop or a Curial Monsignor dining with some wealthy Americans and I note the envelope being passed from supplicant to curial benefactor, I can only think of Luther’s lament: “Everything is for sale in Rome” and reflect that the greatest failure of the Second Vatican Council was its inability to Reform the Curia Romana.    The Curia had never wanted a Council in the first place.  John XXIII sprung it on them without warning.  They protested that an infallible pope had no need of a Council; he could govern by decree.  John knew better, of course, but it did not stop the Curial party from an attempt to seize the Council by drawing up a series of rather pallid and vague decrees that were mostly rhetoric and very little substance.  Their thought was the bishops will come, vote approving our schema, and go home.  The bishops did anything but.  By the end of the first session—what the curial party had thought would be the only session —the bishops had persuaded the pope to restructure the entire Council and its processes to give the bishops full and active participation in both drawing up the decrees to be voted on and then actually voting.  The Council marked a tremendous about face for the Church on any number of issues from ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions to a total revision of the Mass and Sacramental Rites of the Church to articulating an active role for the laity and shared responsibility of the bishops with the Pope in the governance of the Church.  The Curia was alarmed.  They shared responsibility with the Pope for governing the Church.  Who were these bishops to usurp their place?  They were in  panic.  The bishops, or at least a select number of them, would be returning  to Rome on a regular basis for “synods” to advise the pope. But that was their job as the Curia.  They need not have worried.  Bishops go home, curial officials whether mighty Cardinals or merely pezzi-grossi monsignors stay.  Like cockroaches they stay.  They took over preparing the agenda for the synods.  They drafted the interpretation of the Conciliar decrees.  They had 24/7 access to the pope 365 days a years. It took time, but the Curia Romana emerged stronger than ever.  The Bishops gradually lost the power and authority given to them under the Conciliar Decree, Christus Dominus (which I sincerely doubt many bishops even bother to read anymore).  These days the bishops parade to Rome for their ad liminas to be scolded by a series of Monsignors brandishing letters from disgruntled faithful who accuse the bishops of tolerating dissent or being themselves dissenters.  When a synod is convoked, its agenda is prepared in advance by the Curia, speeches are vetted, and a dish of good Roman carbonara is enjoyed by all with a glass of crisp Trebbiano.   I don’t begrudge the pasta and wine, but the need is far more urgent to set a vision which will bring the Church together in mission, the mission of Christ.  Without vision the people perish.  (Proverbs 29:18)   
 

Semper Reformanda--A Church Always in Need of Reform

Bernini's famous statue of Saint Teresa in ecstasy
Santa Marria della Vittoria in Rome  

In my last post I mentioned the Church’s loss of membership as one of the reasons that we need a Reformation.  I really only spoke of North America, or actually the United States, though Anglophone Canada suffers the same and Francophone Canada much worse as a once devoutly Catholic people simply slide in secularism.  The Church is growing rapidly in much of sub-Sahara Africa and in parts of Asia and there is great vitality but Europe is in lamentable shape.  Indeed Pope Benedict has made the revival of Catholicism in Europe a chief priority of his pontificate.  Unfortunately , tragically, to date he has completely failed in this mission.  My opinion is that he has not known how to go about it and thinks that all it requires is a somewhat effete renaissance of he thinks to be “Catholic Culture” focusing on music and art rather than a vibrant and authentic “new Evangelization.”  I too love Mozart and Michelangelo, but neither the Freemason composer nor the gay artist can bear the weight of the Gospel.  A genuine Evangelization needs a Saint Francis and a Catherine of Siena and an Ignatius Loyola and a Teresa of Avila.  We need men and women who are on fire with the Gospel and who exude a love for God and the Love of God for us.  The art and the music come later.  I mean, Bernini’s skill needed Teresa’s passion to create his masterpiece, and first came Ignatius and then the marvelous Gesu.  The religious situation in Europe is terrible.  When I attend Mass in France, for example,  I have found—in Paris, Avignon, Bourges, Nantes, Angers—wonderful vibrant congregations that are warm and welcoming and in which the liturgy is well celebrated with beautiful music and deep reverence, but I have also seen that only a fraction of the population is at Mass. (In Rome, on the other hand, while only a fraction of the people are at Mass, I find the Masses hurried, uninspiring, minimal participation, empty homilies.)   This tells me that it is not a liturgical renewal that is needed—though I appreciate good liturgy—but a genuine evangelization.  Even where the liturgy is good we, as a Church, are not speaking to the hungers of the human heart.  I don’t think that the problem is that people aren’t interested in what the Church has to offer, but rather the Church is not offering in what the Holy Spirit is leading the hearts of people to desire. We are too confident in our own convictions to listen attentively to what God is calling us to become.  We think that our own “tried and true” approach to the faith is THE approach.  I am not sure what hungers the Holy Spirit is putting in the hearts of people today, but it obviously isn’t for the externals of religion that we are too often offering them.  I do think that there is a deep desire for an inner life, a spiritual life.  I think people long for paths to wisdom and compassion—paths our Catholic Tradition knows well (John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, The Ignatian Exercises) but too rarely draws on.  I think people are looking for integrity, honesty, transparency which are signs of genuine holiness but we offer a rather palid piety and superficial devotion.  To bring that down to earth—the need today is not for May Crownings and Holy Hours (though there is nothing wrong with either, other than that they are no more than frosting on the Catholic Cake) but a Church that practices the ideals that it preaches, a humble Church, a Church that delivers on its promise to bring good news to the poor, healing to the sick, freedom to the oppressed and announce a time of God’s Favor to ALL.  I think that people are looking for a Church that empowers them to be of service to others—both to individuals and to society.  They are not looking for a Church that will think for them or tell them what to do or how to make specific decisions, but will give them the tools to be self-actualizing and responsible disciples.  There are people, of course, who will look only towards their own good or their own hedonistic satisfaction, just as there are people who have no awareness of any religious hunger within their heart, but I honestly believe that most people, especially most people who were raised in Christian families, or even families that were only vaguely religious, have values that make them want to move beyond themselves and self-interest to the good of others.  They don’t need, or want, to be told that they have to oppose same-sex marriage or contraception or even abortion.  When it comes to concrete issues, they can make their own decisions but they want an opportunity to discuss and reason out the sound moral principles that will empower them to make those decisions.  Frankly, they are often just as intelligent, or sometimes even more so, than their priest or bishop and they resent being told how they should think.  They want a faith that engages them, that lets them bring their own experience and insights into dialogue with the moral heritage of the Church—not because they reject that heritage but precisely because they want to make that heritage their own, to contribute to its development, to bring heritage into a shaping dialogue with contemporary experience.  They day of telling the faithful what to think or how to believe is over.  The earthquake has begun, the tomb is rumbling, the stone starting to roll back and the Consensus Fidelium is being raised from its deathly slumber of a millennium and a half.  This will be the beginning of the New Evangelization, not a Mostly Mozart evening in the Nervi Hall.