"The Concept of Liberal Catholicism was always Flawed"
The concept of liberal Catholicism, it seems, is crumbling before our eyes. Of course, it was always flawed. Liberal Catholics want a Church that: moves with the times and is “progressive”; allows for the use of contraception and abortion in some instances; is more lenient towards homosexuality; allows for the laicisation of the Catholic world and freedom to experiment with liturgy. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, hasn’t budged. It is unchanging in its stance towards the sanctity of human life and remains quite clear where it stands on homosexuality. It wants the laity to remain active, but in their rightful place. In other words, if liberal Catholics want a Church that moves with the times, they’re in the wrong place. (Will Heaven, Telegraph.co.uk)
Well, we always knew that, didn't we? No, we didn't, writes Will Heaven in his op-ed piece about recent well-deserved criticism of the "The Tablet" by both an auxiliary bishop of Westminster and the US Archbishop of Denver (see here and here - NB. Bishop Hopes' criticism came in the form of a Letter to the Editor which The Tablet "had to print" according to this report in CNA, but which you can only read online if you are a subscriber to the Tablet) - it's something we are just beginning to realise.
So what has changed in the Catholic Church to finally wake us up to the fact that the "liberal Catholic agenda" is doomed? The new pope (well, he's not that new anymore)? No. Heaven points to an entirely different phenomenon in order to explain the failure of the Liberal Catholic push: The Internet.
The internet - and how Catholics are using it to communicate with each other - has played a huge part as well. Ten years ago, you would not often have a US archbishop criticising a wayward editorial in a British Catholic magazine. Nor would the laity have access to Vatican documents which they can print out to show to their local parish priest. The internet has changed all of this. Sure, the Catholic Church has always been about universals. But now Catholics have formed an online community they’re becoming a more coherent force, and they won’t be sidelined or misrepresented.
In this, he is certainly correct. The Internet has connected the Catholic world to the See of Rome in ways that the 19th Century Ultramontanes could hardly have imagined. The early 20th Century publisher W.G. Ward may have delcared a desire for 'a new Papal Bull every morning with my Times at breakfast", but only the 21st Century has been able to make this a real possibility (thanks to sites like Zenit.org). Thanks to the Internet, the Holy Father is truly able to act as a Universal Teacher - anyone anywhere with a computer and modem can hook right into the heart of the Catholic Church's magisterium. And of course, what goes for the Pope goes for the Curia.
Much has been written about the important role that technology (in particular, the invention of the printing press) had to play in the success of the Reformation five hundred years ago. With the coming of the Internet, it is now Ultramontane Dream which has finally been achieved. In fact, perhaps it was not so much that the Liberal Catholic agenda was "always going to lose", but that Ultramontanism was always, eventually, going to win. It just took 150 years or so for the right technology to be developed.
posted by Schütz @ 9:27 pm
39 Comments
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39 Comments:
The other side of the equation is that the church of 'Come As You Are' liturgy and 'Jesus was a nice ghuy and we should all do our own thing' catechesis and RE is not reproducing itself - it appeals to practically no-one under 50.
Please excuse the typo in my last - it should be 'nice guy'. Ithink I need glasses!
But Brian, the " rest of the population " for whatever reason has place itself outside of what the Church teaches. The 5% remain true to the teachings- why blame them for the 95% lost sheep?
"Catholicism... is about the search for personal wholeness, goodness and truth in each of our lives."
Bollocks!
Catholicism is about Him Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and our incorporation into Him, to the glory of the Trinity, which includes our salvation.
Typical of liberals to be so self-centred.
I thought it was sixties hippies who drone on about discovering themselves (an endless quest and quite absorbing apparently), but the grey-cardigan brigade are rather similar.
******
However, aCatholic et al. do tend to offer evidence that liberal "catholicism", deceiving and deceived, still has an awful lot of influence, David - is it really true that orthodox Catholicism is winning on the Net?
I should have thought that the liberals must also reinforce their own networks using the Web...
David, was I overcritical, or do you agree that the above comments seemed solipsistic?
This analysis is flawed: there is no evidence whatsoever that the Fathers of Vatican II called for some vast change in direction (if by this is meant that the Church ought not just change some outward forms and expressions, but really undergo substantial changes in her beliefs and morals), that is just a myth. To attribute such a myth to the Spirit begs the question of precisely which Spirit is being alluded to...
As for the conservatives being in charge! - those in charge at every level (both in Rome and in dioceses) have varied widely in their stances. Surprise, surprise, the Popes have been most stedfast and similar, but among bishops there has been every sort from Lefebvre and friends to bishops that may as well have been contemporary U.S. Episcopalians. And amongst priests the range has been even wider. Arguably, while as said above the true liberals left long ago (since in all honesty they realized that their position was never going to be accepted), at the parish level matters are far more liberal than at the diocesan, let alone at the Papal level, and this is where the vast disconnect is be to found - witness the phenomenon of South Brisbane.
I often think that the Church in her instantiations is quite schizophrenic these days: you can be told and behold one thing in one place, and its opposite in another. This makes a mockery of the classic Catholic claim that we hold to the Deposit of Faith.
The point made above that the vast majority of Catholics are disconnected from "official" practices and beliefs is obviously true: but does this mean that these practices and beliefs are false, or does it simply indicate that people have free will to accept or reject what is proposed, and in the West have largely preferred Mammon? I would argue for the latter.
Here is a pertinent comment from an Anglican blogger:
"What particularly upsets us sometimes is that there seem to be but two sorts of RCs. There are those whose heresies startle us and, imperceptive fools that they are, think they can endear themselves to us by whispering in our ears how the present Pope is wrong about nearly everything, but, not to worry, he will soon be followed by another one who will be as gloriously heretical as anybody could wish. The other sort of RC is the one who shares the faith which we hold, but because he has (rightly) come to see the problems of 'ecumenism' as it is often understood, seems to need to treat us with contempt instead of as brothers-in-arms."
(See this post)
(Mea culpa, I sometimes fall into the second category... Charity is not my strong point.)
David, Fraser Pearce told me that in his experience in ecumenical relations and just in dealing with Catholics when religion comes up, all too often the Catholics give scandal by coming across as the first sort described above - all too eager to mock and despise priests, Pell, the Pope, and whatever Catholic beliefs or practices are fashionably attacked at present. What say you?
Fundamentally, the project of liberal catholicism just makes no sense to me - with regard to the Catholic Faith, which famously is buttressed by notions of infallibility and indefectibilty, either it's all false (and ought be mercilessly extirpated), or it's all true...
We do our religion a profound disservice when we try and tone it down, water it down, and apologetically wink and mock at it - that just makes nonbelievers think Catholicism is a lot of dangerous nonsense fit only for silly women of both sexes!
Something the Pope said at an ecumenical function on his visit to the U.S.A. (18th April 2008) is relevant:
''Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called 'prophetic actions' that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attemt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of 'local options'. Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic Koinonia - communion with the Church in every age - is lost, just at a time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel.''
This is precisely the malaise of contemporary Catholicism: we are no longer unified, but split into a plethora of semi-sects, without real agreement and fellowship either amongst ourselves or, yet more seriously, with those who have gone before us. The turning away from the communion of Saints is evidence of this.
South Brisbane is only the most obvious example of the sad truth that "Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called 'prophetic actions' that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition."
We Catholics are a scandal by reason of our bad behaviour, disunity, and breakdown of belief and practice. (In this I would include the horrifying abuse scandals that give evidence of hypocrisy and conspiracy in mockery of morality and truth.)
The replacement of faith and order with doubt and disorder leads to disillusionment, indifference, apathy, and a drift away from religion. The trajectory of Catholicism in the West has been just such, particularly as western cultures have dissociated themselves from religion, and Catholics have abandoned their own sub-culture (who now fasts? who, apart from Italians, still celebrates saint's day feasts and processions?), to sink into the mass...
There is of course a religion that makes very bold, absolute, and exclusive promises; that requires a firm adherence to rites and disciplines; that has a very detailed orthodoxy which must be observed strictly; and whose members have staunch fellowship one with another, while inhabiting a conscious communion and culture distinct from those around it; this religion, unlike Catholicism or even Christianity in general, is growing apace, and its members have no fear of demographic decline. It is Islam.
According to Coyne, perhaps aCatholics should turn to Arabia for guidance?
Watch it, Brian. "Pulling yourself" is not very polite. I don't want to have to deprive you of the port bottle, now...
If, Jesus were to come among as he did 2000 years ago, I think he would be appalled at how childish he followers are bickering with each other. I think he would tell us all to grow up and start truely listening to what his good news is all about. By this will you know that you are my disciples, if you love one another, not stand in judge of each other but love one another. Will we ever get the message straight?
Dear Brian, you have a theory for why Churches are emptying, and so do "we". The question simply is "why ought we to take on board your idea?" I mean we post-Nietzschean Catholics. Catholicism justifies itself as part of a continuity that traces itself back to Christ. I am yet to see a version of what you stand for, Brian, that doesn't engage in a caricature of what we stand for (Keep in mind, it is you who accuse "us" of being "conservatives," and persistently engage in conceptually secularizing the division of Catholics), and also doesn't appeal to a standard of truth that is completely self-destructive, and has indeed failed (I mean, who that is not old and boring reads Loisy and Tyrell and Renan as serious ways of being Christian any more?). What JPII and Pope Benedict appeal to is at least coherent: the Eucharist and the resurrected Christ.
Dear Jules,
Jesus condemned the Pharasees and Scribes for placing heavy burdens on the backs of others and not lifting a finger to lift them. We find, too often, that to be the case with the official Church
today. It worships its own man-made laws (found in the Codes of Canon Law), and in the backpeddling of JP II and Benedict XVI---from the documents of Vatican II (Lumen Gentium )
and other documents.
All Catholics at their Baptism are equal to all.
The Church is all the People of God---not just the hierarchy. But these two popes have placed the clergy over the laity---in a manner that did not exist in the early Church. The laity are told that if they belong to any committees---their voice is only consultative---even though they may be expert in those areas---in the areas of marriage--celibate men have been dictating to married couples what and how their married life is to be lived.
The 5% that remain true to Jesus' teachings?Through what Looking Glass are you peering at the Gospel? From Alice in Wonderlands?
The hierarchy will have to take the blame for the 95% that have left----the Church was given by Christ for the people and its leaders were to be servant-leaders---not feudal lords, living a life-style that is unaffordable for most people, wearing jewelry, lace and silk that makes them look like transvestites and trying to bully-rag the people into compliance---rather than lead by their pastoral concern.
Dear Joshua,
You don't know your history, do you? The Church cannot exist with only 5% of the population. It can't keep its power base, its
life-style operating, and the Vatican DOES
LOVE ITS POWER!
The Church in so many countries, is ready for a major schism to occur---and the Vatican does not, repeat, does not---want that.
If we cannot find a place where we meet God in our hearts, our lives, our work, our families,
our very existence----which is the work of spirituality---we are merely Cultic in our observance. We are no different that the worshippers at Stonehenge!
But if you read the works of spiritual writers, you find that the areas that Brian is speaking about is the very substance of what Christianity is about. The gospel can be proclaimed and proclaimed---but unless it become part and parcel of one's soul---a real part of one's life---the words are merely words.
Jesus went and touched peoples' lives---not just merely proclaimed a message. He did one and then modeled how HE carried out HIS own message. We are not seeing any modeling from today's so-called "Pastors".
Amusingly enough, too many modernist Catholics actually have a super-maximal belief in Papal infallibility, which goes so far as to spill over into heresy - they believe that anything in faith or morals can be made to be true or false if the Pope so declares.
The only thing they learnt as children when catechised was that the Pope rules OK. What a sad distortion of the truth that the Pope is conservator and guard of the Deposit of Faith, and what a sad confirmation of the Protestant jibes against the Church.
All one has to do is wait patiently for... (as Joachim of Fiore long ago imagined) Papa Angelicus to come, the Angelic Pope who will usher in the Third Age, the New Age of the Holy Spirit. (Joachimites believed that the institutional Church would die, and a new egalitarian age would dawn. Sound familiar?)
Perhaps Coyne is the Moses of the aCatholics?
Well, I'm Joshua, so watch out! ;-)
We're watching out, Josh! :-)
Thanks for this post, Kiran.
There have been a number of new commentators who have attempted to post in this combox thread, and, unfortunately, they are not all worded in such a way that I would regard befitting of polite dinner conversation and debate over the port and cheese.
May I therefore point to Kiran's post as an example of how one can be both forthright and polite in this discussion?
(P.S. You may also wish to be a little less "liberal" and a little more "conservative" with space in this discussion than our beloved brother, Joshua! :-))
Thank you. I seem to be getting many more compliments than I deserve lately. Which makes me suspicious: What is round the corner? :-)
In all seriousness, I don't think one could label Pope Benedict as a "conservative" in the bad sense of the word - a reactionary. Rather, again and again, he shows an "openness" to ideas that would be surprising if one didn't know the astonishing willingness of Christian tradition to engage with truth, whatever its provenance. Consider as examples of this, what he has said on Biblical studies, and on evolution. Whatever the popular press might say, on one level, Benedict is far more deeply engaged in both projects than was JPII, or indeed any Pope before him.
The whole notion of some sort of homogeneous grouping called 'Liberal Catholicism' is flawed.
Where are they? On what basis do we include one person in such a group and not another. What are the ideas that distinguish a liberal from another grouping?
For example, there's an ongoing discussion on CathPews about Capital Punishment. One poster insists that the Church is very much for CP and the late PJPIIs writings to the contrary (effectively) are 'personal opinions. The other is adamant that we can't call ourselves 'pro-life' and be for CP. Which of these positions are 'liberal' and does having just one 'liberal' idea make you a liberal?.
Time and again I see these labels, where ever they come from, as self-serving straw men.
Apparently it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, 'Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people'.
Yes, I can go on, and on, and on!
We all of us struggle to live the Christian life - it would be slightly surprising if we found it a pushover! (Of course, as we grow in virtue it should grow easier to live in perfection, but this side of the grave I can't see it being easy: even the Saints found it no joke, though withall wonderful, despite every cross.)
The danger is that, rather than falling and getting up again and again, we can persuade ourselves that "really" we can make compromises, and end up inhabiting our own comfort zone, rather than persevere on the narrow path that leads to life.
An illusive "spirituality", coupled with a personal "interpretation" of moral norms, can lead one to find happiness in a hippie commune for example...
We must pray for open eyes to see things as they are: and for us, the teachings of the Church are to be our rule and guide.
As one of Chesterton's quotations goes, Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies if they become fashions - notoriously, belief, let alone acceptance of moral norms (let alone moral norms that are a little difficult to keep), or acceptance of beliefs contrary to what secular society deems safe and inoffensive, is not at all fashionable today; doubt, suspicion of tradition, and all the rest are what the world tells us we should love.
I saw a post recently that spoke of how there is a distinct Christian dialect (which was so new and different it remade Latin and Greek), using words like "God", "Jesus", "grace", "heaven", yes, and "hell", "sin", etc., which the world finds hard to bear - but we ought speak it.
But then again, ideas originate from groups of people. One always thinks as a member of a particular community, and one's thought leads back to a certain vision of community. I don't think it is the Lefebvrists alone (though I certainly do think the Lefebvrists are by and large, in their approach and their epistemology, fundamentalists) fit into a certain category. Members of certain other groups also define themselves against the "mainstream" or "conservatives." Very often, they criticize
Let me make clarify at least where I am coming from. I believe that the Church is a continuity, and belonging to the Church is something like a pre-condition for reasoning. Also, because of the very dynamism of tradition, Catholicism is quite capable of radically reshaping itself in an effort to get closer to the Truth. In other words, groups of disagreeing Catholics, unlike other combatants, can appeal to a reading of the tradition, that somehow justifies their position, and in doing so, can, from within, reshape Catholicism. Of course, there are good and bad, and more or less justified versions of these. (And by the way, by bad, I include both certain types of "conservative" positions including some variants of Leonine Thomism, as well as people like Nancy Pelosi who use Augustine and Aquinas for pithy quotes. Curiously, both are guilty in the same way. They read Thomas or Augustine without any sense of context, as a source to justify conclusions already reached). I think there is such a thing as a "reasonable" conception of "liberalism" as being that (in some cases self-identified) community which tries to change the Church to conform to an external and already apprehended standard (Note that, God, or the "Truth" is neither purely external, nor properly speaking apprehended here down below, except through a glass, darkly.)
I also am not an ultramontanist. I think ultramontanism is itself problematic (fundamentalistic?). Christianity, including the Pope, has to be understood in relation to Christian tradition, not according to a particular authority. Of course, the Pope and Episcopal authority has a place in the Church, but not in order to provide ipse dixits by which we guide our lives. That is to reduce papal authority. And of course, Pope Benedict himself is not an ultramontanist. He views the exercise of his own authority in connection with Christian tradition.
I don't know what I was intending to say with the fragment "Very often they criticize" Perhaps what I said below about ways of viewing the Church, ad extra. Sorry for the fragment.
But then again, ideas originate from groups of people. One always thinks as a member of a particular community, and one’s thought leads back to a certain vision of community. I don’t think it is the Lefebvrists alone (though I certainly do think the Lefebvrists are by and large, in their approach and their epistemology, fundamentalists) fit into a certain category. Members of certain other groups also define themselves against the “mainstream” or “conservatives.” Very often, they criticize
I chose the Lefebvrists only as an example of a group that is self identified and fairly coherent in where they stand.
Heaven's article starts with ' Liberal Catholics want a Church that ...'. So he defines what a 'Liberal Catholic' is and then, in classic straw man style, demolishes 'them'.
Its money for old rope.
I agree. Totally.
Tony, I was very hurt by that comment, and I would thank you to bear that in mind and not denigrate my feelings.
... I was very hurt by that comment ...
By what comment? That labels are useful for poking fun at each other and not taking ourselves too seriously and not much else?
What 'feelings' am I actually 'denigrating'?
No, I'm not an Ultramontanist: for, though of course I accept and believe what Vatican I taught (as a Catholic, I actually accept all the Ecumenical Councils!), I reject as fundamentally uncatholic that viewpoint that so magnifies the Pope as to make Scripture and Tradition irrelevant - since it is that maximalist misreading of Papal authority that has got the Church into such a sorry mess.
I am a Traditionalist, if you will: one who emphasises the hermeneutic of continuity, and adheres to the Vincentian Canon: Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus. For this reason, I read things written before the Council (shock, horror), because I don't believe in a Catholic "Year Zero" that discounts everything between Pentecost and 1965. So I appreciate the Deposit of Faith as expressed in all ages, diachronically, whether in the Bible, the Apostolic Fathers, the Latin and Greek Fathers, mediæval theologians, Aquinas, Trent, Counter-reformation saints and authors, theologians of the nineteenth century, and so forth. I also read modern writers and theologians in continuity, such as Aidan Nichols, or John Saward, etc. etc.
One part of my Trad. Catholic outlook and practice is to prefer, as the Pope has admitted is entirely right and proper, the pre-reform liturgical books: so I use the '62 Breviary and the '62 Missal. But of course I accept, and perforce attend, the modern Mass, for lack of anything better here.
Just because you think we should laugh and poke fun at each other doesn't mean that I don't take matters much more seriously.
I should say also that I have tried to engage in civil conversation. All I have seen from you is name-calling, a kind of fear-mongering. I am happy to talk with Christians who disagree with this or that particular teaching, but I don't see how you are any different from the group in your imagination you are combatting (The word is deliberate. The imagery of conflict is yours).
Crikey Joshua! Aren't you the same guy that dressed me down for my insensitivity?
I stand by my comments; such persons do in fact want to take away religion and remould it after their own image, which is fundamentally fascistic and diabolical, against my God-given rights as a Catholic to observe the true Faith. I am sick and tired of liberals claiming to be nice, when they are not: they are dangerous.
Mark my words, those like Coyne would stop at nothing to extirpate Catholicism as we know it had they the power - arguably, the damage and dissent in the post-Conciliar Church is due to such men. They would that all parishes be as South Brisbane, and would mercilessly oppress those wishing to keep the Faith, let alone make use of the Traditional liturgy.
And I know from many priests that they faced, in getting through to ordination, such pestilent persons opposing it; Coyne would rather the seminaries be closed than have a new generation of faithful priests come through, who are unashamedly orthodox and love the Church, not hate her, ridicule her, despise her and condemn her as out of date and even contrary to Christ, when she is His beloved Bride.
I think you also expressed a desire to avoid labels too, if memory serves.
... the smiling liberal exterior the fascistic Nietzschean ...
How does that fit with your own standards?
Also, on a quick scan of Brian's remarks I see no claim that he seeks to be 'nice'. It's hard not to conclude that it's a claim that you assign to him (and, presumably, others who fit your label) then condemn him for not living up to it.
Finally, I've endeavored to explain my 'insensitivity' and you've left that hanging.
I think I can get a bit overwrought... I am very sensitive, because I have suffered a lot at the hands of "liberals", hence my distrust of them and my fear of them.
No, I don't mind using labels - perhaps you're thinking of the far more tactful Kiran.
I'm glad that C. doesn't claim to be nice.
I believe that he and like aCatholics are a hindrance, not a help. Their project is antithetical to our Faith.
You seem a decent sort, anyway.
And as you can see, I am just as capable of going on and on as anyone else.
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