Gay Scouts

One of the events that happened while my computer was in the hospital is that the Boy Scouts of America changed their policy to permit gay youths to become scouts.  This sent some of my favorite loons of the blogosphere over the edge howling and screeching that the Scouts had “caved in” to the “lavender lobby.”  Father Derek Lappe, pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea parish in Bremerton WA is one of several priests to expel Boy Scout troops from his parish and he has received a lot of support from right-wing groups for his decision.   There have also been many voices raised questioning Father Lappe’s decision and claiming that his stated reasons betray an understanding of same-sex attraction that is consistent neither with contemporary scientific theory nor with Church teaching.   Pastor Brian Grady of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Crystal Lake has also terminated parish support of a Scout troop.   
Frankly I am surprised—and relieved—that more Catholic pastors haven’t followed Father Lappe’s example.  But when one reads the policy of the Church towards any form of discrimination against people with same-sex attraction, I don’t know how parishes could have supported troops unless the Scouts changed their policy.  Let me quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Atheist Popes and Closet Believers

Have you heard of the dyslexic
pope who believes in Dog?

Bill Maher says that he thinks Pope Francis is an atheist but from his description of atheist, I suspect that Bill Maher is no more an atheist than the pope.  This raises an intriguing question—not whether either the Pope or the comedian is an atheist, but what do people mean by “atheist.”   I have always held to a pretty strict definition of the term.  An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity—God or any god.  But Mr. Maher points to the Holy Father’s recent statement about salvation for those outside the Church—and even for those who profess to be non-believers.  Maher’s quote, as best as I can retrieve it, is “‘Pope Frank’ said the Lord has redeemed all of us, not just Catholics, even the atheists. And I was like, I’m going to book my flight to heaven right now. “  The question is does Mr. Maher not believe in a Supreme Being or does he not believe in organized religion?  Not believing in organized religion is not sufficient grounds for declaring oneself an atheist.   Many of us are Christians, even Catholics, in spite of the organizational dimension of “the Church,” not because of it.  Note, I say the organizational dimension of the Church, not “the Church.”  I love belonging to a community of people centered around the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That energizes me and give me some vision for life.  That community to which I belong—and which I find has the most energizing power—happens  to be Catholic.  On the other hand, I am not particularly enamored of belonging to this overly pompous institution fascinated far more by human traditions than by the Evangelical Tradition which draws me and which has been handed down from Christ through his apostles.  Speaking as a historian and not in a theological context, there is a world of difference between “the Church of Jesus Christ” and the institutional bureaucracy that is today’s “face” of Catholicism.  Such things as the College of Cardinals, the Code of Canon Law, the Tridentine Rite, communion on the tongue, galeros and miters, the Knights of Columbus, monsignors, communion rails, canon 915, Bishop Frank Dwayne, male-only altar servers, religious habits,  and birettas are not part of the Jesus-patrimony.  That is not to say that some of them aren’t good things, or even that I don’t like some of those things—but it is not what our faith is about.  Reconciliation, forgiveness of sins, inclusiveness, dignity of each individual, the Kingdom of God, justice, community, service, mercy, almsgiving, change of heart, and prayer are “what we have received from the Lord and handed on to you….”  Many of these things in the patrimony from Christ are somewhat ambiguous and call for our response without giving us concrete norms and that is difficult for people who find great comfort in rules, regulations, and canon laws but the Gospel is the Gospel. 
Frankly, and again as a historian not a theologian, I find that I am called not to believe in the Church (whether as an institution or as a community) but to believe in the Gospel and I see the Church as the community with the mission of spreading that Gospel.  The Church is not worthy my faith.  As a human institution (even if it has foundations in a “divine origin”—i.e. it was founded by Jesus) the Church has proved itself over and over again as unworthy of our faith.  But we as Church have a glorious mission of animating our human family with the message of God’s Kingdom, “on earth as it is in heaven.”  Now that is something I can believe in.  Apparently so does ‘Pope Frank.’  And seemingly so also may Mr. Maher, though he certainly doesn’t see the Catholic Church as an agent in transforming the world and he probably doesn’t see  how these dreams of a “better world” find their greatest potential in the teachings of Jesus.  And without putting words into the papal mouth, I think that what the Holy Father was trying to say is that all who embrace God’s Kingdom will find a place welcome for them in it.  No, Pope Francis is no more an atheist than Mr. Maher is a Christian, but I am not sure he is the atheist he wants to be either. 

Foundations of the Anglican Church XVIII

York Minster, Cathedral of

the Archbishops of York

It is interesting that every so often while researching one topic, I trip across another with which I had not been familiar.  In looking at the life of Edward I, I found that he had a daughter a nun—and her life gives us a picture of the thirteenth century English Church and its spiritual vitality—or, in this case, its sad state. 
The princess Mary, known as Mary of Woodstock, was the thirteenth of sixteen children born to Edward I and his wife Eleanor of Castile.  (The widowed Edward had three more children by his second wife, Marguerite of France.)  When her grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, the widow of Henry III, decided to take the veil as a nun at Amesbury Abbey in Wiltshire, she asked that two of her granddaughters, Mary and Eleanor of Brittany, be sent along to the convent as well.  Mary was only seven years old when fated to convent life, though she was not officially veiled as a nun until she was twelve. 
Amesbury was an English house of the Fontrevault order.  Fonterevault was a monastery in Anjou (France) with strong ties to the Plantagenets, the English Royal Family.  Fontrevault had been founded by Robert of Abrissel (1045-1116), a reformer and preacher.  It was a double monastery of nuns and monks with the Abbess of the nuns as superior of both communities.  Henry II, as Duke of Anjou, had been a major benefactor of the Abbey and he, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and several of their children—including Richard the Lionheart—are buried there.  Amesbury Abbey had been founded under the Rule of Saint Benedict in Anglo-Saxon days but had been suppressed under Henry II and turned over to the Fontrevault Order which sent nuns to the monastery which was by  this fact reduced to priory status as a dependent house on Fontrevault.  Fontrevault was regarded as a reformed order and its level of observance was supposed to be quite strict.  But not for the Lady Mary.
Mary was given a very generous allowance worth about $100,000 a year in modern sums.  She also had a special allowance for clothing (habits and veils are expensive, I guess).  She also was entitled to 20 tuns of wine (over five thousand gallons) a year from the royal stores.  Despite the papal bull, Periculoso, requiring nuns to remain in their convents, Mary travelled freely about and maintained an entourage of servants to accompany her.  She often returned to court and she sometimes went on pilgrimage.  She ran up considerable gambling debts which her brother, King Edward II, had to pay off and she may have had an affair with John de Warrenne, a political foe of her brother the King. 
Meanwhile, her cousin, Eleanor of Brittany had become Abbess of the mother house at Fontrevault and tried to rein in this loose-living nun, but was quite unsuccessful in doing so.  Her brother the King defended her and even the Pope took her side.  Meanwhile, seeing her free lifestyle, various daughters of the nobility decided that being a nun wasn’t all that bad a deal and entered the priory at Amesbury under Mary’s “guidance,” leading to a decline in the house’s observance and reputation. 
Looking at the life of Mary of Woodstock, one can see the sort of nun that Chaucer would use as his model in the Canterbury Tales. 
Let’s go back to Henry II for a moment—remember him?  Henry was the king who had the fight with Becket.  In addition to the six legitimate children he had with Eleanor of Aquitaine Henry fathered at least two bastard children. The elder of these, indeed the eldest of all Henry’s children, was Geoffrey, not to be confused with a legitimate son also named Geoffrey.  Henry’s father was named Geoffrey and Henry idolized his father.  His father, a man of remarkable military prowess but of cold and evil temper was not worthy of his son’s obsessive admiration.  (Isn’t that so often the way?) In any case, young Geoffrey—being illegitimate and of a commoner mother—was not a suitable heir for the kingdom.  The Church could provide a career for the young man and at age 21 he was named Bishop of Lincoln.  He wasn’t ordained a priest yet, of course, and he delayed taking Holy Orders while collecting the bishop’s income.  That was not uncommon in the Middle Ages.  Geoffrey was more cut out for secular life—like his grandfather, he was a prodigious soldier.  When in 1173-74, his half-brothers (Henry the Young King, Richard, Geoffrey and John) rebelled against their father in an attempt to seize the kingdom, Geoffrey took his father’s side and played an important role in defeating the over-anxious princes. In 1181Pope Lucius III demanded that Geoffrey be consecrated a bishop or give up his diocese.  He gave up his diocese and his father, Henry, named him Lord Chancellor.
When Henry died in 1189, Geoffrey was in trouble.  Richard the Lionheart remembered this older brother had fought against him in the rebellion of 1173 and Richard was not about to allow him to remain as Lord Chancellor.  Richard wanted to neutralize any claims to the throne that Geoffrey might make, especially given that Richard was planning on going on Crusade and wanted to leave his kingdom secure.  He named Geoffrey Archbishop of York and forced him to receive episcopal consecration in 1191.  Geoffrey was a most quarrelsome prelate—fighting with his cathedral chapter, with the other bishops of England, and with his half-brother, the King.  Geoffrey adopted for himself and by no authority other than his own, the title “Primate of England” which set off a fight with the Archbishop of Canterbury who claimed the primacy.  (Eventually it was settled with York being the “Primate of England” and Canterbury being the “Primate of All England.”  (Wasn’t there something in the gospels about the apostles arguing over which was the greatest?  Do we ever learn?)   He seems to have had a chip on his shoulder that he had not been allowed to succeed to the crown and was forced to a career in the Church, a career he never truly embraced other than as a source of power and pride.  This was a huge problem in the medieval Church, however, where prelates were chosen not for their pastoral gifts, or even for their piety, but regardless of their character they were named for political reasons. 
These stories—of the princess-nun, Mary of Woodstock, and the bastard Archbishop Geoffrey fitzHenry, give us a glimpse of the malady into which the Church of England had sunk in the thirteenth century.     Traditionalist Catholics often hold that century up as the apex of Catholicism.  A century ago, the pseudo-historian, James J. Walsh even wrote  a book The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.  It remains a perennial favorite among Catholic romanticists.   The truth is, however, that the same century that gave us Francis and Dominic also gave us characters of much lower sanctity and worth.  But every century is like that.  There is no golden age of Catholicism—the wheat and the tares grow alongside one another in the field until the day of judgment. 

Foundations of the Anglican Church XVII

Henry III's shrine of Saint Edward the
Confessor in Westminster Abbey

Well, I am back.  I was having some computer issues.  And then there is the usual end of term craziness.  But I think we are back in business and on with our story about the history of the Church of England.  We left off with the story of King John—one of England’s worse monarchs—and his struggles with the Church.  John took on the Church and lost valuable ground—actually losing his kingdom to the Pope and receiving it back, not in his own right but as a papal fief.  While this surrender and regrant were more a symbolic gesture and a legal fiction than a practical loss of power, in an age where symbol carried far greater meaning than it does today, indeed where symbol carried far greater meaning than actual political clout, John’s failure was the apex of political power of the papacy in Britain.  But under John’s son, Henry III, the relationship of crown to Church deteriorated even more. 
Unlike his cynical and even agnostic father, Henry was an exceptionally pious man.  Henry was only a boy of nine when John died—some allege from a surfeit of peaches, though more likely from dysentery (which most unpleasant symptoms are not unlike a surfeit of peaches) and Henry inherited the throne.  As a minor, his authority was exercised by a regent, William Marshall, who was, according to Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton,  “the greatest knight who ever lived.”  William died however before Henry reached his majority and Hubert de Burgh, justicar of England and Ireland, took the regency into his own hands.  It was not as satisfactory an arrangement as might be hoped.  Henry found much of his reign a struggle with the barons of England who were trying to fend off the royal authority that was threatening their own customary feudal rights and privileges.  The issue at hand was the efforts for a central and national government (the King) to emerge from the feudal society based on regional powers exercised by local nobility.   The Church favored, not only in England but generally, the emergence of strong central monarchy and Henry depended on the structures both of the English Church and the papacy for his support. 
Henry’s ties to the papacy led him into a war in Sicily when Pope Innocent IV tried to name Henry’s son, Edmund, King of Sicily to replace Conrad IV Hohenstaufen as king there.  It was a fruitless effort.  Sicily was too far away for English victory and this war simply meant expense in money and life.  In fact, Henry was just a pawn of the pope who—like other thirteenth century popes—was determined to break the power of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Italy.  The English barons revolted against the king’s policy and Simon de Montfort emerged as head of the baronial resistance.  de Montfort defeated and captured Henry at the battle of Lewes in 1264.  Henry was reduced to a figurehead and de Montfort, in the King’s name, summoned the Great Council of the Realm—an assembly of the nobility which had met from the time of the Norman invasion and which itself had been preceded in Anglo Saxon days by the Witenagemot, an assembly the leading men of the realm—to which de Montfort added representatives of the gentry from each shire and the burgesses from each town.  This effectively created the institution which today we know as Parliament.  Henry was freed from his captivity in 1265 and took savage retribution on his enemies among the barons. 
Henry was a complex character.  He was a passive man, lacking strength of character, but vicious in his retribution to his enemies once he had the upper hand.  He was pious to a fault and that political indecisiveness, even weakness, was probably related to being overly pious.  His hero was Edward the Confessor.  He rebuilt not only Edward’s tomb in Westminster Abbey but the Abbey itself at great expense, hiring the architects of the new Gothic styles from France.  Reading that Edward dressed simply and without ornaments, Henry did likewise. And he named his first son and heir Edward so that an Edward would once again sit on the throne of England.  By his reign one could say that the once autonomous Church of England was thoroughly absorbed into the Roman Communion, no longer a Church in communion with Rome but definitively “under” papal rule.   For all his efforts to overcome the barons and establish a strong crown, Henry, in  his piety,  missed the threat the Church presented to royal authority.   
Henry’s son, Edward, was as strong a king as his father had been weak.  Like his father, Edward was a prisoner of the barons from 1264 until his escape the following year.  He rallied the royalist party against the barons and defeated de Montfort at the battle of Evesham in 1265.  He was responsible for the mutilation of de Montfort’s corpse in retaliation for his father’s, King Henry, captivity.  Edward succeeded Henry in 1272.  Edward was off on Crusade at the time of Henry’s death, but his reputation cause sufficient fear among the baronage that there was no challenge to his authority during the time it took for him to return to England.  And in fact Edward had the confidence to take his time on the return, stopping off to oversee his French possessions.  Edward was a great king but like his father, who was a good man but a bad king, Edward was a great king but a bad man.  It very often goes that way.  Edward is often remembered for two things.  In 1295 he summoned “the model parliament.”  Following on the precedent set by de Montfort in the 1265 assembly, the peers were joined by two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each town.  Moreover, these “commons” (as opposed to the nobles) insisted that they should not merely assent to the decrees of their betters, but have a direct role in shaping the decisions.  (They did not meet separately as a “House of Commons” for almost another fifty years, but sat in council with the nobles.) 
Edward had a long history of anti-Semitism.   The Jews in England “belonged” to the Crown—just as the Jews of Rome belonged to the Pope.  The King was free to do with them as he liked.  Edward taxed them into poverty.  He exploited their unpopularity among the common folk—the Jews were the moneylenders since usury (the charging of interest) was forbidden to Christians—for the popularity of the monarchy.  In 1279 he had three hundred Jews executed for “coin clipping”—the practice of shaving the edge of coins to accumulate the small amounts of gold or silver such shaving might yield, but, at the same time, debasing the coinage.  In 1280, he forced the Jews to submit to listen to sermons preached by Dominican friars in efforts to convert them.  Finally in 1290 he confiscated their property and ordered all Jews expelled from the realm.  Jews were only allowed to return to England in 1656 by Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth.   The seizure of Jewish property gave the crown great financial advantage and would be copied by Philip the Fair of France in 1306. 
Edward’s need for money made him turn against the Church as well as the Jews.  In 1279 and again in 1290 Edward enacted “statutes of mortmain.”  Mortmain, from the old French morte (dead) and main (hand) was the practice of leaving land to the Church.  If Lord Jones owns a field and leaves it to his son, his son pays an inheritance tax on it.  And when the son dies and the grandson inherits it, the grandson pays an inheritance tax on it.  And so to the great grandson and each future generation—they must pay the tax again and again.   The land would in each generation provide income to the Crown.  But when Lord Jones leaves that same land to the Church, the land passes into “the dead hand” of the Church, that is to say it no longer passes from one generation to the next but now is owned in perpetuity by an institution that never dies and thus never is subject to the inheritance tax.  That land passes out of the Crown’s income.  Modern folk don’t tend to leave land to the Church or to other institutions.  We may leave money, even trusts, but not land.  But in the Middle ages such bequests were not only common—they were all but universal.  More and more land was being left to parish churches, abbeys, hospitals, friaries, collegiate churches, bishoprics and other religious institutions.  The wealth of the Church was growing exponentially. Edward was determined to stop this but it was perceived to be an attack on the Church.  Nevertheless, ways around the statutes of mortmain were devised and the Church continued to benefit from the generosity of the faithful.  It would in the long term be fateful, however, as the wealth of the Church would prove to be too tempting a plum for King Henry VIII to resist. 

sorry about the hiatus here.  give me a few days and we will be back on track

Foundations of the Anglican Church XVI

King John

Sorry, I sort of dropped the ball this past week as other responsibilities—and a little bit of sloth—closed in on me.  I had some other things planned to introduce reflecting on the blog regarding His Eminence of Chicago and his fears of inevitable martyrdom for his successors a la Becket.  But let’s just lay that aside for now and get back to our saga of the Church of England. 
As I have maintained in previous entries on this subject the identity of the Anglican Church is very complex and it is completely untrue to claim that it was established by Henry VIII.  Historically the Church of England has always had an unique identity and while it was historically “in communion” with the Bishop and Church of Rome from antiquity until Henry VIII fractured those bonds in the sixteenth century, it had its own traditions, liturgies, and canons which were quite independent of the continental and Roman practices. 
We had left off with the story of Thomas Becket and his murder by four knights of the court of King Henry II.  Becket was fighting to maintain the independence of the Church from the Crown which, in turn, was trying to establish its authority to deal with criminal behavior of the clergy and to limit (note, limit not eliminate) the Church’s right to appeal over royal authority to the Pope.  Becket did not die “for the faith” but “for the Church” and, in this particular case I am afraid for insupportable claims of the Church.  No one today would argue that the Church should have exclusive rights to try and punish the clergy for criminal activities.  Indeed the Catholic Church in the United States has lost valuable ground in the battle with an ever-more secularizing society precisely because some American bishops were trying to bloc justice’s pursuit of errant clergy.  If Cardinal George’s dire predictions are to come true we must blame several of his fellow members of the Sacred College for the seemingly irreparable damage done to the Church’s credibility and the squandering of what had been an illustrious record hard earned by the women of the American Church and their two centuries of service to the poor, the immigrant, the sick, and the victimized regardless of religion.  But let’s move on and go back to the English story.
Becket went to his grave in 1170 and Henry to his in 1189.  Henry’s son, Richard Coeur de Lion (Lion-heart for you mono-linguists [I love being a pompous ass—maybe there is a mitre in my future]) succeeded him and in turn died in 1199.  Richard spent very little time in England.  His great love were his French possessions—Normandy, Anjou, Maine, the Aquitaine, and who could blame him?  The English go to France on holiday; the French do not return the compliment—and there are reasons why, weather and cuisine not being the least of reasons.  Richard was a great defender of the Church.  He went off on the Third Crusade—as much for the love of a good war as for devotion to the Church.  He was, a man’s man who by the way, had a thing for manly men.  This is not to say he was gay, he was most likely bi-sexual, or perhaps better, omni-sexual.  His unanchored sexuality seems to be one of the reasons for a piety that was both deep and superficial.  I say deep as it could be quite extravagant; superficial in as that it never seemed to address the deeper levels of spirituality.  His almost continual absence from England for Crusade and French domains was combined with a psycho-spiritual ambivalence as he seems to have had no interest in pursuing his father’s attempt to establish clear constitutional authority over the Church and its clergy.   When Richard died, however, the throne went to his younger—and only surviving—brother, John.  Henry II had been one of the greatest kings to sit on the Lion Throne; Richard was one of the greatest men to do so; John was a failure in both departments.  And not only a failure, but an abysmal shadow of what a man, much less a king, is called to be. 
In 1205, Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, died. King John instructed the monks of Canterbury to elect the Bishop of Norwich, John de Gray, as Walter’s successor.  (Remember, at this time Bishops were elected by their cathedral chapters, not appointed by Rome, though both Rome and various kings or nobles instructed the cathedral chapters on whom they wished to have elected.)  The monks of Canterbury Cathedral, however, had their own candidate—their subprior, Reginald.  In defiance of the King they elected Reginald.  This shows how weak John was that a bunch of monks would defy him on a crucial issue such as who is to be the spiritual leader of the country.  Meanwhile the suffragen bishops of the Province of Canterbury got into the act claiming—without any precedence—that they had a right to elect the Archbishop.  They probably would have chosen the King’s candidate as they themselves owed their appointments to crown nomination.  The monks, sly as monks are, had secretly sent a delegation to Rome for papal confirmation of Reginald.  The bishops discovering this, sent their own delegation.  So the matter ended up before Pope Innocent III.  Innocent was as strong a pope as John was weak a king.  And to make a point of papal power, Innocent appointed his own candidate, Stephen Langton, an English cardinal living in Rome.   
John was furious.  He saw Langton as an agent of his enemy, Philip Augustus of France.  Langton had lived and taught at Paris before Innocent had brought him to Rome in 1203 and had ties to the French court.  John refused to let Langton to enter England.  Moreover, he seized the lands and revenue of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the royal treasury.  The Pope, after an attempt at reconciliation, lost patience and put England under interdict, forbidding any and all religious services except baptism of children and absolution of the dying. 
Now interdict was a serious matter in those days.  You want to get married?  Sorry, no can do.  Granma can’t have a funeral or even be buried in consecrated ground. Sunday Mass?—no.  Daily Mass? no.  Holy Communion? no.  confession? Only if you are dying.  This is for everyone, the whole country.  People begin to fear for their souls.  They were getting restless.  The clergy blamed the king.  The people didn’t like the king anyway.  He isn’t like his brother, Richard.  John is taxing them too much.  He is no warrior.  He’s a bully. 
John, for his part, turned against the clergy who were enforcing the interdict.  He put them in jail.  He confiscated the lands that support them. This wasn’t  helpful to his cause.  People may hate the Church but they usually like their priest.  They know him and he knows them.  When the priest grumbles about the King, it doesn’t help the King’s popularity.  In 1209 the Pope played his next higher card and excommunicated the King but it was not as effective a move as he had hoped. John had no worries for his immortal soul—he was never one to think far in advance. Moreover, he was no more worried about the salvation of his soul than he had worried about the interdicted souls of his subjects. From his blasphemous humor and casual disregard for the things of religion, it seems that John may have considered the whole God thing something for lesser intellects than his, not that there were many minds more obtuse but such is the conceit of minds to shallow to apprise the abstract passions that burn within the human heart. Both Pope and King dug in their heels.  But then Philip Augustus got into the act and began to plan an invasion of England to trounce the excommunicate King of England.  This did make John nervous.  Philip was a great warrior; John was not and had already lost Normandy and Anjou to the French King in 1204.  The last thing John needed was for Innocent to sanction a crusade against England.  So in 1213 John blinked first.  In making peace with Innocent, John had to cede his kingdom to the Pope and receive it back as a papal fief.   This meant that John recognized the Pope as his overlord not only in spiritual matters but temporal as well.  The Pope was sovereign in England and the King was but his governor, a papal viceroy.  While this was symbolic and had no practical effect on the day to day governing of the kingdom, in the medieval world symbol was everything and it gave the Papacy tremendous moral advantage over the English Crown.  Perhaps the most serious outfall of John’s surrender is that it showed the barons of England how weak John was.  They in turn challenged the Crown and confronted John in 1215 with a list of demands that severely limited royal authority, the Magna Carta.   Innocent, as overlord, annulled the charter but it stood and has stood for both English and Americans as a foothold of democracy against arbitrary and unilateral authority. 

A Contemporary Reflection on the Becket Controversy

A Becket-in-the-making?

Cardinal Francis George

of  Chicago

Cardinal George’s dire forecast that his successors would die martyrs for the faith triggered me to write these reflections on the contemporary Church in the United States the martyrdom of Thomas Becket—who died not for the faith but to preserve the Church’s privilege of exemption from the Law.  Ironically I am  and have long been a devotee of Becket.  Given the understanding of the Church’s position in the 12^th century, I realize that Becket acted on a principle he cherished as a matter of faith.  However in the 20^th century none of us would hold to that same principle—well probably Cardinal Law would—that the Church is not answerable to any authority but its own when it comes to crimes by the clergy.  Of course Becket lived in a time when the Church was consolidating its power; today we are somewhat more suspicious about power and reluctant to see it go unchecked, even (and especially) in the Church. 
I have referred several times before to the insight offered by the late Cardinal Avery Dulles in his book, the Catholicity of the Church, that the first thousand years of the papacy were about witness; the second thousand about power; and the third thousand will be about service.  I agree with Dulles but I think the paradigm can be extended from the papacy to the Church itself and this would mean that Catholicism is at one of those great shifts in the theological tectonic plates as we move from the template of power to the template of service.  Little tremors have signaled the shifting ground ever since Bishop Emil de Smedt of Bruges declared in the opening session of Vatican II that the Church had to renounce the “clericalism, juridicism, and triumphalism” of the past and meet the modern world on its own terms.  Paul VI abolished the papal court, drastically simplified the costuming of prelates to be rid of the princely accoutrements.  Religious women, moving out of their large motherhouses, put aside their medieval garb and institutional ministries to undertake hands-on service of abused women, abandoned children, the homeless, the aged, the immigrant, and the mentally ill.  Jesuits and de la Salle Christian Brothers opened up inner city Christo Rey Schools to give the children of the poor an educational leg-up that would let them compete successfully for placement in the academies run by their orders.  Religious Orders of both men and women started NGO’s and Institutes and outreach centers that would interface them with the rank injustices that underlay our social structures on the local, national, and international levels.  New model bishops, noted for their simplicity of style and humble service, emerged in the Church in such figures as Dom Helder Camara of Recife Brazil, Remi de Roo of Victoria,  Bernard Topel of Spokane, Oscar Romero of San Salvador, and Thomas Gumbleton (auxiliary) of Detroit.   But it was an Albanian nun who most personified this new attitude, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and captured the attention of the world by her devoted care of the poorest of the poor.  But it has not been a highway without its detours, roadblocks, speed bumps and potholes. 
There has been a strong current among social conservatives pushing a restorationist agenda in the Church to preserve the privilege and power of past centuries.  Recognizing that the liturgical changes introduced under Paul VI in the 1970 missal have probably been the strongest factor in awakening the social consciousness of the Catholic faithful, some bishops, many priests, and about five percent of the active laity have pushed to restore the pre-conciliar rites along with the elaborate costuming of prelates abolished by Paul VI.  There has been a revival of neo-traditionalist art and architecture in many Catholic parishes that focuses on splendor and material display.  Restorationist prelates such as Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Bernard Law, and Archbishop William Lori pushed for measures to rein in the religious sisters who have devoted themselves to the service of the poor and disenfranchised in our society.  Ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation have come in most places to a grinding halt as Pope Benedict XVI changed the ground-rules from a tone of mutual cordiality and respect to a high-handed arrogance combined with a disdain for any whose understanding of Truth differed from the Catholic norm. 
Most troubling is that, at least on the American scene, the institutional dimension of the Catholic Church ceased speaking up for the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters and began shrill denunciations of those in our society who disagreed with the Church on two issues, abortion and same-sex marriage.  Catholic voices—some bishops, many priests, and a bloc of laity have called for the civil law to enshrine Catholic moral doctrine on these issues regardless of the fact that the majority of Americans do not agree with the moral principles on which the Catholic Church builds her case.  Catholics in public life have been threatened with Church censures if they did not do their jobs according to the directions of the hierarchy.  Catholics who voted for politicians who would not cave in to hierarchic pressure were threatened with censure and punishment if they did not follow the directions of the clergy in casting their ballots.  The Church was seen as using its moral authority to enforce a political agenda and that is not playing according to American Constitutional tradition. 
Fifty three years ago, a Catholic running for President spoke to a group of Protestant clergy declaring

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

At the time that man spoke, the Catholic voice stood behind him. It would be our first—and to date only—opportunity to have one of our own in the White House.  But today, many voices in our Church think that prelates should tell politicians how to act; Catholic pastors have no difficulty in telling their parishioners for whom to vote.  Today we see a religious body seeking to impose its will upon the general populace and the public acts of our elected officials. 

I don’t believe this means that Catholics need to be silent about abortion or about same-sex marriage—or about gun control, capital punishment, universal health-care, immigration, or the host of other hot-button political items that have religious implications.  I do believe, however, that our role is to educate and convince the electorate of the truth of our position, not to unilaterally impose our values on the larger society.  We can, as can any citizen or group of citizens, use the political system to further our convictions but we have no right to hijack it, even for the good ends we desire.