Why Arlington? Historical Context of Clerical Madness 1



Thomas J Welsh, First Bishop

of Arlington



I think the thing that has most worried me about this whole episode of a “fidelity oath” that allegedly was to be imposed on catechists and their teaching aides—some of whom are only in their early teens and would have no idea of what they were being asked to swear to—was the expectation that such an “oath” would apply not only to the public or external forum (what we say, write, publish, teach) but to the internal forum (what we believe to be true and by which we direct our moral actions) and this would break new and dangerous ground in the Church.  The internal forum—matters of conscience—are traditionally sacrosanct in our Catholic tradition and are dealt with only with one’s confessor and/or spiritual director but are never subject to public appraisal.  I was struck in a recent book edited by Jesuit historian John O’Malley (Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?, New York: Continuum, 2011 )  by his insight that in all the anathemas imposed by ecumenical councils from the first, Nicea, to Vatican I (Vatican II did not threaten with anathemas) that they always applied explicitly to what one said or denied or taught or in some way did observably—that is to the external forum—and never to what one thought or held interiorly, i.e., the internal forum.   What was so disquieting in the Arlington kerfuffle was how quick some were to take up the crusade against others with whom they disagree and with how much anger they wanted to push those who disagree with them to the margins of the Church, or even beyond.  One person wrote on the blog of a friend of mine “If your conscience prevents you from teaching what the Church teaches, then perhaps you are a better Protestant than a Catholic. There are a hundred thousand alternatives. Take your pick ”as if she could not too quickly be rid of the company of others whose understanding of our Catholic faith differs from hers.  There is a noxious air in the Arlington Diocese, an atmosphere of anger and self-righteous pseudo-orthodoxy, that is rooted in a curious combination of the American “Culture Wars” and the particular circumstances in which the Diocese has its roots. 

Arlington Diocese, of course, is a case somewhat of itself.  If one knows the history of Arlington, the diocese was conceived in sin and over the decades of its existence has probably needed an exorcist more than a bishop.  Back in the early ‘70’s when Richmond Bishop John Russell who had been a Council Father at Vatican II was retiring and Walter Sullivan—a known progressive—was named to replace him, a group of Northern Virginia pastors used their influence with the Apostolic Delegate to split the Richmond diocese and create the Diocese of Arlington from the Washington DC suburbs and the northern half of the State of Virginia.  To be fair, it was probably time to create a second diocese in Virginia, and these particular pastors had been strategizing about it for a period of time, but the way in which the split was organized and the intentions behind it laid the groundwork for today’s rancorous divisions in the new diocese. 

Monsignors Justin McClunn, T.P.Scannell, Richard Burke among other conservative pastors were by no means the ideologues of today’s Arlington right-wing clerics but they were appalled at the extremes to which some Richmond priests were going in liturgical experimentation.  When one looks at the churches they built—McClunn’s St. Louis in Alexandria or Scannell’s St. Michael’s in Annandale—these were not men trying to undo the liturgical reforms proposed by the Second Vatican Council but neither were they the sort to go along with exotic escapades of the likes of Fr. Tom Quinlan who one Christmas dressed as a “Blue Angel” (remember Marlene Dietrich?) or one Palm Sunday drove a Volkswagen Beetle down the aisle in his Procession of Palms.  This is not to say that McClunn and company were simply “High Churchmen”—while they embraced the new liturgy (done according to the established norms of the times), they were not of the temperament to share decision making with the laity in their parishes nor to be “transparent” about finances.  (Scannell was a financial wizard whose foresight in acquiring property all over Northern Virginia served the new diocese well when it came time to open new parishes.)    Let me also say that McClunn, Scannell, Burke and associates were, at least in my memory (I was quite young then and only an observer to the diocese being a grad student in DC but with many ties to Northern Virginia and its clergy) were gentlemen.  While I would at the time not have agreed with them on very much about the Church and where it needed to go, and while most of my clergy friends were in the opposition camp to them, I found them unfailingly hospitable and gracious men.  I cannot say that about many in the current crop of their heirs among the Arlington crazies.  

It was a disappointment to this coterie of monsignoral conservatives that McClunn was not, as expected, named the new bishop.  And perhaps, in retrospect, it was too bad that he wasn’t.   Philadelphia auxiliary Thomas Welsh became the first bishop of Arlington.  Welsh was not a bad man nor a retro bishop.  Granted, he was one to put the brakes on, but not to put the car in reverse much less turn around and make hell-bent-for-leather into the days of preconciliar Catholicism.  Nevertheless, the clergy being given the option of with which diocese to affiliate, most of the progressives fled south to Richmond leaving Arlington with a clergy somewhat skewed to the right.  It was not time yet to panic however.  Most of the Arlington clergy were moderate in their conservative views.  Conciliar and post-conciliar reforms—the RCIA, the 1974 revisions in the Rite of Reconciliation, the use of Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, the option of receiving communion in one’s hand, all were introduced as they were elsewhere.  Altars faced the people.  New churches were being built in designs that reflected the congregational role of participation in the liturgy.  Arlington may have been moving somewhat slower and more cautiously into the emerging Church of Vatican II, but it wasn’t resisting it or even dragging its feet.  But that was before the proactive campaign to recruit recidivist clergy that would take place under Arlington’s second bishop, John Richard Keating.  More on that to come. 

Inquisition Cancelled--All A Misunderstanding

Arlington Bishop,
Paul Loverde

I am deeply ashamed.  I broke a cardinal rule of historians.  I published (albeit in blog form) without having completed my research.  It turns out that there is no “fidelity oath” in the Diocese of Arlington after all.  After contacting the diocese I received a copy of Bishop Loverde’s letter and of the alleged “oath.”  And the diocesan spokesperson told me: “It is not an oath.  It is a profession of faith”—and that is the very sort of thing that I had said was the appropriate requirement. Here is the text of the Arlington profession of faith.  

I, N., with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the Symbol of faith: namely:

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.

I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.

   This profession of faith contains the key doctrines of the faith as articulated in the Nicene Creed, as well as that which is taught by the Magisterium as divinely revealed in scripture and (Apostolic) Tradition.  It further demands assent to that which has been defined by the Church in the areas of faith and morals.  And it includes that which is taught by the Universal Magisterium even when it is not defined as dogma.  That is actually not asking a lot, especially of a potential religion teacher.  When one understands the language, it is not as fearful as it might sound. 

First, while I would have preferred that it not require a “religious submission of will and intellect” to that which is taught by the Roman Pontiff and the College of Bishops,” such a requirement does not infringe on the rights and obligations of conscience in the interior forum.  It simply means that in the public forum—in the classroom, in public discussions, in what one writes or publishes—one does not dissent from that which is taught by the Pope or by the College of Bishops, that is by the ordinary magisterium.  One must agree publically with what the Pope has taught not only in “infallible statements” but in his ordinary teaching mode—i.e. encyclicals.  (This would exclude Mr. Justice Scalia from teaching CCD were he so inclined as he has publicly dissented from the teaching on Capital Punishment as laid out in Evangelium Vitae.  By equivalency, however, it also means that one cannot dissent in teaching, writing, publishing, or public speaking from the teaching on contraception as outlined in Humanae Vitae.)  It does not mean, however, that one in one’s own conscience cannot reach a different conclusion on contraception, or another issue taught by the magisterium.   Operative here is “in one’s own conscience” which is not a public forum but a matter of internal forum.  Of course such a private divergence from Church teaching requires that one have studied the issue with due seriousness.  Furthermore, if one is to actually practice contraception (and not only privately disagree with the teaching) it normally would mean that in addition to a serious study of the issue, one has discussed this with his or her confessor before deciding that the moral principles laid out in the Church’s teaching for some grave reason do not apply to the particular circumstances of one’s own life.  And it would require due discretion in the public forum regarding such a decision.  While one might come to such a conclusion in one’s own circumstances, and one can discuss it freely with one’s family or friends, one should not advertise one’s dissent—theoretical or practical—from magisterial teaching.    I know this sounds awfully complicated but there are some fine lines here precisely to protect the sovereignty of conscience. 

Secondly, in regard to this final paragraph of required profession of faith, let me draw your attention to the phrase “College of Bishops.”  One must not only show public respect and not publicly dissent from the magisterial teachings of the Roman Pontiff, but also to the magisterial authority of the College of Bishops. 

While a bishop can require of the Catholic faithful over whom he has authority assent to his magisterial authority in his diocese, this document does not attempt to go that far.  It only requires assent to the magisterial authority of the Pope and the College of Bishops.  That refers to the universal college of bishops acting as one such as when the bishops proclaim in the canons or decrees of an Ecumenical Council.  “College of Bishops” refers neither to an individual bishop nor to a Conference of Bishops such as the USCCB.  A bishop (who is the Ordinary, i.e. the bishop of the diocese) has magisterial authority in his own diocese but this document does not include that.  A Bishops’ Conference (such as the USCCB) does not have magisterial authority in any circumstances.  So the USCCB position on the HHS mandate is not binding—publicly or privately—on the faithful, even those called to be catechists.   It also must be remembered that magisterial authority is limited in all cases—even that of the Roman Pontiff—to matters of faith and morals.  While faith and morals can (and should) have impact on one’s political, economic,  or social behavior or one’s ideas in philosophy, history, science, mathematics,  magisterial authority extends only over areas of doctrine and morals.  Thus the magisterium cannot directly command a particular political choice though it can lay out the moral principles which should bind the Catholic citizen to certain criterion in making his or her political choice.  In any event, despite the claim of the unnamed doctrinal authority of the Arlington Diocese quoted by the Washington Post, there is no required affirmation that the HHS mandate violates the religious freedom of the Church.  One may hold that opinion if one so chooses but the USCCB has no authority to require assent to any teaching and while the universal magisterium rightly teaches the moral requirement for freedom of religious practice, the question of whether this particular bill impinges on that freedom is a matter of Constitutional Law and not in the realm of faith/morals. 

More comments on the Arlington Profession of Faith in future entries.      

Reformation Today 6! A Voice For The Faithful

John Henry Newman as a

young Anglican clergyman

John Henry Newman (1801-1890), made a Cardinal by Leo XIII and beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, is the darling of many of today’s Catholic neo-cons and it must only be because they have not done an in depth look at his life and career.  When he was made a Cardinal, Leo XIII told him that there had been much opposition to his receiving the red hat from the neo-cons of his day because he was too liberal.  Actually, while he was no ultramontane, liberal and conservative are each descriptions that do not fit Newman well. 

Newman had been born into a family with Calvinist lineage and a precocious reader, even by 19^th century English Protestant bourgeois standards, he himself embraced evangelical Calvinism in his teen years.  This gave him a firm foundation in the fundamentals of Christian orthodoxy and removed him from the intellectual malaise of liberal Anglicanism’s drift towards religious indifferentism.  It was that same abhorrence of a non-intellectual Christianity however that drove Newman beyond evangelicalism even as it had first drawn him in.  Newman, a man of the most controlled affectivity, saw that many of his fellow evangelicals had embraced the movement not for its fidelity to the core Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, but for the religious feelings that evangelical worship produced.  At university Newman settled more comfortably into the intellectual Anglicanism typical of the Oxbridge Colleges of the nineteenth century. 

Newman was ordained deacon and then priest in the Anglican Church in his Oxford years and undertook pastoral work as well as various tutorial and administrative posts.  His passion to understand Christian dogma led him to a thorough study of the Church Fathers.  His immersion into the Fathers led him to write The Arians of the Fourth Century which was published in 1833. 

It was doing his research on the Arian controversy where he discovered to his shock the while Saint Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, and a only a minority of the bishops supported the doctrine that Jesus is equal in divinity to the Father, the majority of bishops accepted the Arian heresy.  Arius was a priest of Alexandria who in the late third and early fourth century taught that Jesus was not equal to the Father in his divinity.  The majority bishops, anxious to move slowly in articulating the evolution of the faith of the Church which was only then coming to understand the implications of the Divinity of Christ for the core dogma of the Oneness of God—that is only then questioning how if Jesus is God and the Father is God can God be One—were hedging on the Divinity of the Son, implying that Jesus’ Divinity was somehow less than the Divinity of the Father or of a lesser Divine Nature.  While Athanasius and a minority of bishops were brave enough to speak out for what eventually would be defined as Christian Orthodoxy it was the overwhelming support of the laity for the Divinity of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, that carried the day.  This impressed Newman on the importance of the sensus fidelium—the consensus of the laity—not merely in passively accepting doctrine but whose acceptance of doctrine is a key element of its definition. 

Years later Newman wrote an essay for The Rambler “On Consulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine.”  This article which asserts the importance of the voice of the faithful in the formulation of doctrine without confusing it with the duties of the magisterium, attracted the wrath of Pius IX and the contempt of Newman’s peers.  One of those peers, a Monsignor George Talbot, said that the role of the laity was “to hunt, to shoot, and to entertain.”  There are many Talbots in the Church today who think that only the hierarchy has a role in the formation of doctrine and many of them have pictures of Newman above their desks or belong to various societies named after Newman.  But attracted to the glamor of a convert turned Cardinal, they don’t seem to understand how radical a thinker Newman was in his day.  Had Christians of the fourth century passively accepted in intellect and will all that was taught by the bishops, we would today be Unitarians. But God inspires more than just the magisterium; he inspires the entire Church.  Those voices who are questioning the "fidelity oath" in the Diocese of Arlington understand how important it is that they fully understand that to which they are swearing belief.   

Freedom of Conscience--All Depends On Whose Conscience It Is

Bishop Loverde of Arlington

teaching children the faith

My last posting concerned a “fidelity oath” that the Diocese of Arlington has imposed on teachers in Catholic Schools and Religious Education programs throughout the diocese.  This oath allegedly requires teachers to “believe everything the bishops characterize as divinely revealed and Arlington’s top doctrine official said it would include things like the bishops’ recent campaign against a White House mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage…” 

Well we have some problems, here, don’t we boys and girls?
In the first place, is the problem of oaths.  Let us look at paragraph 2155 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The holiness of the divine name demands that we neither use it for trivial matters, nor take an oath which on the basis of the circumstances could be interpreted as approval of an authority unjustly requiring it. When an oath is required by illegitimate civil authorities, it may be refused. It must be refused when it is required for purposes contrary to the dignity of persons or to ecclesial communion.

Now I will be the first to say that it is extremely important that those charged with teaching the faith teach the faith as the Church teaches it, no problem.  I will also agree that a priest being given the charge of souls as Parish Priest (the canonical term for a pastor) may be required to take an oath to teach the faith in its fullness and without alteration.  Even more would this be true for a man being installed as bishop of a diocese.  No problem.  But an oath requiring complete assent of intellect and will to be in conformity to all Church teaching for a man or woman teaching seven-year olds?  Or—for that matter—teaching seventeen year olds?  I think the pastor needs to meet with the teachers and explain the importance of teaching what the Church teaches.  I think teaching needs to be—to some extent—monitored to make sure the children are getting the faith of the Church and not the private opinions of a teacher presented as the teaching of the Church.  But an oath!  I would think that it is funny—somewhat like a cartoon of a man going after a horsefly with cannon—were it, if not a violation of the 2^nd commandment at least skirting its violation. 

Secondly, in taking an oath, is the person being required to admit the right of

diocesan authorities to require such an oath and do the bishop and his officials  have the moral right to require religion teachers to take an oath that extends their authority over “intellect and will”? 

According to the catechism we should not take an oath that is being imposed unjustly lest the taking of that oath be interpreted as approving the unjust exercise of authority.  Do Diocesan authorities have the right to call in individuals and make them swear that not only in the public forum—i.e. in what they say in the classroom—but in the internal forum—i.e. what they believe and practice in their conscience—that they give complete assent to whatever the bishop(s) determine is divinely revealed.  This is very complicated as it involves authority over the internal forum—the conscience of the individual.  Now, under certain circumstances, the Church has imposed the obligation on certain people to give assent both internally and externally to certain doctrines, including the teaching on contraception.  I have no problem with the Church requiring priests and those who teach in the name of the Church to promise that they will not teach contrary to Church doctrine.  I do have a problem, however, when you talk about requiring internal assent if that extends to conscience.  While I believe that we must form our consciences according to the teaching of the Church, I also believe that the conscience is sacrosanct and that even an erroneous conscience must be listened to by the person to whom it belongs. I have been taught that this too is a fundamental principle of Catholic moral theology.  What authority then does the Church have to make a person hold in conscience what they do not in fact hold in conscience?    

Now up to this point we have been talking about issues like contraception or same-sex relationships and these are certainly within the area of the Church’s teaching competency, but this Arlington “oath” extends not only to such grave matters but to agreement of intellect and will that the HHS mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage is a violation of religious freedom.  We have crossed a line here from faith and morals (contraception) to Constitutional Law (that the mandate is an infringement of the First Amendment).  Can such a principle justly be required to be accepted in “intellect and will?”  Would not taking such an oath involving a constitutional question with political overtones be a validation of the authority of the Church to impose itself beyond the area of faith and morals?  Or perhaps the catechism is saying that the requirement to resist an unjust oath only applies to civil authorities but that the Church has such a right over its members? Hmmm.  No it seems to be that this oath is wrong in the first place because the matter is not sufficiently grave to require an oath.  Secondly it is wrong because it tries to exercise an absolute jurisdiction over an individual’s conscience.  Thirdly it seems to be to be wrong because it admits the validity of the diocesan authority to impose its weight beyond the competency of the Church’s magisterium.  Let me conclude with an email I recently received from a friend of mine.  It just repeats part of the Washington Post article—but a significant part

Loverde, who called for the oath, was not available for comment. Catholic bishops have broad authority in their dioceses, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said there is no churchwide requirement for such oaths.

Some experts said the oath embodies the intense struggle in Catholicism today to define what makes someone a true follower. What teachings are core? What authority do laypeople have?

The Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, who heads the leadership program for Catholic educators at the University of Notre Dame, said many bishops “are in a pickle.” They want Catholic institutions to be staffed by people who not only teach what the church teaches but whose “whole life will bear witness.”

Nuzzi said he keeps a photo on his desk from the 1940s that shows all the German bishops in their garb, doing the Nazi salute.

“I keep it there to remind people who say to do everything the church says, that their wisdom has limitations, too.”     

Let me repeat

“I keep it there to remind people who say to do everything the church says, that their wisdom has limitations, too.”