Let Battle Commence
At the Extraordinary Synod on the Family last October, it quickly became evident that there are two completely opposed mindsets in the Church, which confronted each other at the synod just as they had done at the Second Vatican Council 50 years earlier.
Pope Francis encouraged the participants at the synod, and indeed the entire people of God, to speak without fear of any punitive consequences. This was an implicit recognition that fear of being accused of infidelity, or even heresy, sometimes prevents Catholics from expressing their opinions freely and openly. Why? Largely because one group in the Church has a way of speaking darkly about certain matters having been permanently settled by “the teaching of the Church” and going on to claim that any attempt to present an alternative view would “confuse” them and promote disharmony and disunity.
There are two conflicting mentalities in the Church, and they cannot be conflated. We tend to assume that we should try to seek a consensus between the views of conservatives and liberals. In my view, that is impossible. All we can hope for is that the two sides can be induced to live peaceably and amicably together. In a body as large and as culturally diverse as the Catholic Church, discrepant and irreconcilable attitudes are inevitable. We should try to live with them, not pretend that it is necessary – or even desirable – to smooth them over. I am well aware, of course, of the frequent protests against the use of “labels”, such as “conservative” or “traditionalist” and “progressive” or “liberal”. But we should not be afraid of using these terms, or something like them, as a shorthand to describe the different positions Catholics take on controversial issues under discussion in the Church and the world. Condemnation of labels can sometimes just be a lazy way of sidestepping healthy debate. It patronises those who see an urgent need for open and candid discussion.
Sometimes, confrontation is necessary – especially, I would say, when one side sets itself up as the sole arbiter of orthodoxy, and uses power rather than respectable argument to promote its cause. Traditionalists committed to the truth of their position and willing to argue for it are altogether preferable to those who imagine that they occupy a storm-free eminence from where they can look down with virtuous pity on the combatants below.
Christopher M. Bellitto’s article in The Tablet (3 January 2015) described Pope Francis’ closing address at the first Synod on the Family as a “pre-emptive strike against the extreme wings of opposing Catholic camps”. Francis’ words, Bellitto claimed, suggested “a path of détente, maybe even disarmament, for the year ahead, as the Church prepares for the synod’s second part in October 2015”.
In my view, this would be to waste a year that should instead be devoted to the open and free discussion that Francis wishes for the Church. The truth and the will of God may actually be found in the clash of ideas and convictions expressed freely and without the threat of institutional interference.
I want to echo the eirenic intention of Bellitto’s article while questioning what seems to me to be his basic thesis. I am interested in his use of Yves Congar’s celebrated book, Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Eglise (“True and false reform in the Church”) – written, be it noted, while he was still under attack by the Holy Office – which should be read in tandem with My Journal of the Council, in which he is much more realistic in recognising what was at stake: “After the stifling regime of Pius XII, the windows were at last being opened; one could breathe. The Church was being given its chance. One was becoming open to dialogue.”
In the Journal, Congar describes the council in startlingly combative terms. He knew he was engaged in a vital contest for the soul of the Catholic Church, and he had no hesitation about saying on which side he stood. There is no question of a détente or disarmament here. This was not a time to speak about “bringing the two sides together”. It was a time for deciding which of the two sides one stood on, and fighting for it.
From the moment the Council Fathers had sight of the draft documents prepared for them by theologians of the Roman clerical universities, it was clear to all those, including Pope John XXIII, who wanted to see true reform in the Church, that these draft texts had to be completely rejected. Congar did not mince his words: “These Rome-based theologians have no respect for the Tradition. All they can see are papal utterances. That is where the great battle will continue to be waged. The truth will prevail.”
Stirring words, written, as they were, on the eve of a battle. This was true reform, and it called for military metaphors to express its urgency. “Nothing decisive can be done until the Roman Church has emerged COMPLETELY from its seigneurial and temporal pretensions. ALL OF THAT must be DONE AWAY WITH; AND IT WILL BE.” Congar, in the Journal, uses upper case to add emphasis to what he was writing.
The situation that faces us this year, as we prepare for the second Synod on the Family, can be seen as a decisive moment in the struggle to continue the programme envisaged by the majority at Vatican II. Bellitto writes: “Francis wants to split the progressive-conservative divide by mowing right over it.” Can this be done? Should it even be attempted? The contest between these two sides was, and is, predominantly about the use of power to impede the free discussion of ideas. Peace in the Church will not be brought about by trying to find a consensus between two mutually contradictory positions: either you believe, for example, that Communion should be given to partners in an irregular union, or you do not. The imposition of conditions for the reception of Communion would amount to capitulation to the rigorists.
Institutional peace can come only if the two sides agree to disagree, if they each put forward the best arguments they can for what they believe, while living and worshipping together. Above all, it is imperative that neither side resorts to coercion or punishment in the prosecution of its convictions.
Perhaps we have something to learn from other Churches. Early in his ministry as Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby reflected in worried tones about the danger of disintegration in the Anglican Communion due to disagreement over such matters as gay marriage and women bishops. It was a courageous public admission of a very real and painful institutional problem.
The comprehensiveness of the Anglican Church exposes it to the charge of a lack of discipline and of having no fixed principles. This is unjust. In my opinion, Catholics have much to learn from the admirable comprehensiveness of Anglicanism. Why should we allow ourselves to be embarrassed by the clash within the Church of honestly held ideas and convictions?
If ecumenical dialogue is not an honest search for truth and for new insights, it becomes an exercise in what the Anglican theologian John Macquarrie, in a lethal phrase, called “ecclesiastical joinery”. Although he was a committed ecumenist, Macquarrie was quite prepared to speak of the “many dangers in ecumenism”, especially “the danger of submerging legitimate differences, and thereby impoverishing the body which is enriched and strengthened by these differences”. As he pointed out: “The genuine diversity-in-unity of the body of Christ needs to be defended against uniformity just as much as against divisiveness.”
Differences and tensions within the Churches should not be smothered any more than the legitimate differences between them. Many traditionalists, for example, look to Jesus as primarily a legislator, and they cite texts from the New Testament that make it quite clear that Jesus was against divorce and remarriage. Those who take a different view have never denied this. What they point out, however, is that while Jesus held out ideals of what ought to happen in a godly life, he was moved to compassion by the plight of those who failed to reach the ideal.
At the first Synod on the Family, there were eminent hard-line traditionalists who said that if couples break the law, they should be refused the Eucharist – a view that was energetically opposed by those who, inspired by Pope Francis and led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, emphasised that Jesus was first and foremost someone who showed mercy to people who, like the woman taken in adultery, had failed to observe the law.
We do not know what Jesus wrote in the sand on that occasion, but we do know that what he said to her accusers left them feeling unable to cast the first stone. Pope Francis echoed this, by answering a question on homosexuals, with his remark to journalists on his flight home from Brazil last year: “Who am I to judge?” – a pertinent reminder of Jesus’ instruction: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged” (Luke 6:37).
The Christian Church is not designed only for strictly observant rule-keepers and doctrinal rigorists. Christians are human beings wounded by failure, false promises and disillusionment. For some, daily life is a scene where they hurt and are hurt; for others, it is a place of boredom, feelings of worthlessness and lack of meaning. For most people it is a combination of happiness and sadness, light and shadow, a twilit world of religious uncertainty and moral ambivalence.
This is the world in which we have been placed, at a distance from God, so that, with the help of unmerited and freely granted grace, we may undertake a pilgrim journey in trust and confidence towards the Creator whom Jesus has taught us to call our Father.
“One must ALWAYS protest,” wrote Congar in his Journal, “when one feels in conscience or by conviction that there are grounds for doing so. Of course, one thereby makes trouble for oneself, but something positive is nevertheless achieved.”
When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offends against justice and peace by identifying its own traditionalist opinions as “the immutable teaching of the Church”, and then accuses, and even punishes, fellow Catholics for not conforming to them, we have a situation that makes dissent and protest not only permissible, but a moral and theological duty.
Dr Gabriel Daly OSA
Sometimes, confrontation is necessary – especially, I would say, when one side sets itself up as the sole arbiter of orthodoxy, and uses power rather than respectable argument to promote its cause. Traditionalists committed to the truth of their position and willing to argue for it are altogether preferable to those who imagine that they occupy a storm-free eminence from where they can look down with virtuous pity on the combatants below.
Christopher M. Bellitto’s article in The Tablet (3 January 2015) described Pope Francis’ closing address at the first Synod on the Family as a “pre-emptive strike against the extreme wings of opposing Catholic camps”. Francis’ words, Bellitto claimed, suggested “a path of détente, maybe even disarmament, for the year ahead, as the Church prepares for the synod’s second part in October 2015”.
In my view, this would be to waste a year that should instead be devoted to the open and free discussion that Francis wishes for the Church. The truth and the will of God may actually be found in the clash of ideas and convictions expressed freely and without the threat of institutional interference.
I want to echo the eirenic intention of Bellitto’s article while questioning what seems to me to be his basic thesis. I am interested in his use of Yves Congar’s celebrated book, Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Eglise (“True and false reform in the Church”) – written, be it noted, while he was still under attack by the Holy Office – which should be read in tandem with My Journal of the Council, in which he is much more realistic in recognising what was at stake: “After the stifling regime of Pius XII, the windows were at last being opened; one could breathe. The Church was being given its chance. One was becoming open to dialogue.”
In the Journal, Congar describes the council in startlingly combative terms. He knew he was engaged in a vital contest for the soul of the Catholic Church, and he had no hesitation about saying on which side he stood. There is no question of a détente or disarmament here. This was not a time to speak about “bringing the two sides together”. It was a time for deciding which of the two sides one stood on, and fighting for it.
From the moment the Council Fathers had sight of the draft documents prepared for them by theologians of the Roman clerical universities, it was clear to all those, including Pope John XXIII, who wanted to see true reform in the Church, that these draft texts had to be completely rejected. Congar did not mince his words: “These Rome-based theologians have no respect for the Tradition. All they can see are papal utterances. That is where the great battle will continue to be waged. The truth will prevail.”
Stirring words, written, as they were, on the eve of a battle. This was true reform, and it called for military metaphors to express its urgency. “Nothing decisive can be done until the Roman Church has emerged COMPLETELY from its seigneurial and temporal pretensions. ALL OF THAT must be DONE AWAY WITH; AND IT WILL BE.” Congar, in the Journal, uses upper case to add emphasis to what he was writing.
The situation that faces us this year, as we prepare for the second Synod on the Family, can be seen as a decisive moment in the struggle to continue the programme envisaged by the majority at Vatican II. Bellitto writes: “Francis wants to split the progressive-conservative divide by mowing right over it.” Can this be done? Should it even be attempted? The contest between these two sides was, and is, predominantly about the use of power to impede the free discussion of ideas. Peace in the Church will not be brought about by trying to find a consensus between two mutually contradictory positions: either you believe, for example, that Communion should be given to partners in an irregular union, or you do not. The imposition of conditions for the reception of Communion would amount to capitulation to the rigorists.
Institutional peace can come only if the two sides agree to disagree, if they each put forward the best arguments they can for what they believe, while living and worshipping together. Above all, it is imperative that neither side resorts to coercion or punishment in the prosecution of its convictions.
Perhaps we have something to learn from other Churches. Early in his ministry as Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby reflected in worried tones about the danger of disintegration in the Anglican Communion due to disagreement over such matters as gay marriage and women bishops. It was a courageous public admission of a very real and painful institutional problem.
The comprehensiveness of the Anglican Church exposes it to the charge of a lack of discipline and of having no fixed principles. This is unjust. In my opinion, Catholics have much to learn from the admirable comprehensiveness of Anglicanism. Why should we allow ourselves to be embarrassed by the clash within the Church of honestly held ideas and convictions?
If ecumenical dialogue is not an honest search for truth and for new insights, it becomes an exercise in what the Anglican theologian John Macquarrie, in a lethal phrase, called “ecclesiastical joinery”. Although he was a committed ecumenist, Macquarrie was quite prepared to speak of the “many dangers in ecumenism”, especially “the danger of submerging legitimate differences, and thereby impoverishing the body which is enriched and strengthened by these differences”. As he pointed out: “The genuine diversity-in-unity of the body of Christ needs to be defended against uniformity just as much as against divisiveness.”
Differences and tensions within the Churches should not be smothered any more than the legitimate differences between them. Many traditionalists, for example, look to Jesus as primarily a legislator, and they cite texts from the New Testament that make it quite clear that Jesus was against divorce and remarriage. Those who take a different view have never denied this. What they point out, however, is that while Jesus held out ideals of what ought to happen in a godly life, he was moved to compassion by the plight of those who failed to reach the ideal.
At the first Synod on the Family, there were eminent hard-line traditionalists who said that if couples break the law, they should be refused the Eucharist – a view that was energetically opposed by those who, inspired by Pope Francis and led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, emphasised that Jesus was first and foremost someone who showed mercy to people who, like the woman taken in adultery, had failed to observe the law.
We do not know what Jesus wrote in the sand on that occasion, but we do know that what he said to her accusers left them feeling unable to cast the first stone. Pope Francis echoed this, by answering a question on homosexuals, with his remark to journalists on his flight home from Brazil last year: “Who am I to judge?” – a pertinent reminder of Jesus’ instruction: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged” (Luke 6:37).
The Christian Church is not designed only for strictly observant rule-keepers and doctrinal rigorists. Christians are human beings wounded by failure, false promises and disillusionment. For some, daily life is a scene where they hurt and are hurt; for others, it is a place of boredom, feelings of worthlessness and lack of meaning. For most people it is a combination of happiness and sadness, light and shadow, a twilit world of religious uncertainty and moral ambivalence.
This is the world in which we have been placed, at a distance from God, so that, with the help of unmerited and freely granted grace, we may undertake a pilgrim journey in trust and confidence towards the Creator whom Jesus has taught us to call our Father.
“One must ALWAYS protest,” wrote Congar in his Journal, “when one feels in conscience or by conviction that there are grounds for doing so. Of course, one thereby makes trouble for oneself, but something positive is nevertheless achieved.”
When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offends against justice and peace by identifying its own traditionalist opinions as “the immutable teaching of the Church”, and then accuses, and even punishes, fellow Catholics for not conforming to them, we have a situation that makes dissent and protest not only permissible, but a moral and theological duty.
Dr Gabriel Daly OSA
Originally published in The Tablet
There are many phrases in Father Daly’s writing that I would passionately discuss e.g. “soul of the Catholic Church”, “true reform of the Church”, “dissent as a moral and theological duty”, “two mind-sets in the Church agreeing to disagree”, and I’m sure there are more. I have written on this website about the two “camps” that exist within the RC Institutional Universal Church and it has certainly been the case for all of my 56 years. I’m sure it will continue to be so, unless, Pope Francis with the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit can create cataclysmic change. I know that I am very weary of having to wait and accommodate those who oppose most of Vatican II. I’m positive I’m not the only Catholic who is tired of it all. I remain a Catholic, because, it isn’t only about belonging to a religious organization. I, like so many, many Catholics who yearn for a Church of integrity, are Catholic from the inside out. I cannot leave myself. I have only two major concerns to do with the Church, and that is, clericalism in all its forms, and the exclusion of women from the preaching ministry. I, like Pope Francis, would rather focus and channel my energies into the work of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. Again, I’m probably not alone in that attitude and action. I believe Pope Francis will direct only as much energy as is required for institutional reform. Most of his ministry is going to be about promoting Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Monday’s Gospel reading is from John and the topic is Old and New Wineskins. There is much Old Wineskin in the Universal RC Church. How much energy ought to be devoted to reforming the Old Church? I suspect Pope Francis will do what is necessary, but he is probably hoping and praying for the New Wine of Jesus Christ to create New Wineskins……whether those wineskins be people, processes, ministries, or institutions. Jesus in the Gospel of John, is the New Wine to follow Judaism. We don’t see Jesus making any efforts to change the status quo, but with his death and resurrection, a new way, known as “The Way” is created. I often speculate, muse about, another New Way that proceeds from where we are and where we have been, but, is irrefutably …..NEW….(my emphasis) I love my RC Church and it has been very, very, hard to accept that it is not what I thought it was….however, from a spiritual perspective, there is, and remains, an unblemished bride of Christ, the Church…It’s just that this “true Church” is not marked by politics, noisy gongs, clanging symbols, arrogance, or hypocrisy. It is marked by what our Blessed Mother Mary and the Great Saints have told us…..”Jesus Christ is OUR ALL” No doubt, we need to have a Church Structure that always reflects this spiritual church identity and so, yes, we need the voices of so called dissent. Not all dissent is prophetic, but, there is, to be sure, the prophets in our midst. That would take us to the “theological and moral duty” to protest.
At this juncture, I need to rest my entry. Thank you for printing Father Daly’s words in the Tablet. Thank You to Father Daly and his work, that includes this writing. There is so much fruit for thought and discussion. Wonderful!
Dear Gabriel,
You will not be surprised to hear that I am wholly in agreement with you. I do thank you, however, for presenting, in your inimitable style, our shared views. We are among those liberated by Vatican II. Perhaps, like me, you occasionally glance back at our writings during that decade in the immediate aftermath of the Council. Such enthusiasm, such glowing hope. it was a glorious time! Then the long years of gloom as we watched a concerted effort to dull the vision and dampen down the spirit of the Council. Edward Schillebeeckx had said somewhere that it takes half a century for an ecumenical Council to be fully embraced. How right he was.
I. too, have long realised that the conflicting mentalities of liberal and conservative are incompatible. At best, dialogue may lead to mutual respect and generous tolerance. Basic attitudes will not change. We need to learn to live with that fact.
You and I, Gabriel, have long soldiered together. Now as, realistically, we face the end of the road, we have the comfort of knowing that the liberal voice has not been silenced and that Vatican II is firmly back on the agenda.
Wilfrid Harrington, O.P.
Thank you, Gabriel Daly, for your excellent article.
It is lovely to see the response from Fr. Wilfred Harrington OP.
My thoughts turn to another elderly theologian, your friend Fr. Sean Fagan. You have both supported and defended him as he felt the heavy hand of silencing, book confiscation and threats regarding his very priesthood, from the CDF.
There was a partial lifting of sanctions, the threat to defrock Sean, last April. He still speaks about the disappearance of over 900 hundred copies of his book, What Happened to Sin (2008). When asked recently how this made him feel, he replied ‘miserable.’
I have just re read both of your contributions in the volume of essays honouring Sean in ‘Quench Not the Spirit’ (2005), Scribalism in the church (Fr. Wilfred), and Catholic fundamentalism (Fr. Gabriel).
Fr Wilfred ends his piece;
‘In the field of moral theology, at present the danger area, theologians of vision have, courageously, faced and continue to face in a realistic and sympathetic fashion, the moral problems of our day. One who surely does so is Sean Fagan, a theologian wholly imbued with the spirit of Vatican Two- a theologian internationally respected.
‘He has greatly helped and comforted –and liberated- many. I salute him my colleague and friend. His writings have reinforced my conviction that the supreme law is the Law of Christ- the ‘law’ who is Christ’.
Fr. Gabriel, writing on fundamentalism concludes;
‘They, (fundamentalists) do not see the value of multi-layered meaning of the kind that does not force us to choose between one layer and the others. They believe that pluralism is destructive of orthodoxy. They call for fatwahs, censorships, and sackings or exclusions from teaching or executive posts. ……..They bluster and bully and set themselves up as guardian of orthodoxy.
The gospel faces us with the difficult task of loving them-while standing up to them’.
Why are the leaders in the Orders who have members that are silenced and censored, still so quiet, acquiescent to the CDF and afraid to speak out for them?
Vatican representatives will say ‘It is a matter for the Order’ when asked.
Is not time therefore, for these leaders to take courage from the example of Jesus in the gospel and fight for the rights of our prophetic sisters and brothers to be heard and read without fear of punishment.
Mary Cunningham
Thank you Gabriel for the article which I’m still reading and rereading… Thank you to Wilfrid, Darlene and Mary for your responses … so well put and making sense to a pastor(male!) who needs to be fed from positive men and women like yourselves .. Take a SPIRITUAL bow .. May I add a Prayer in Church Unity Week .. “Lord Make us one in mind spirit and heart”
Oh well said, Mary Cunningham! Where are the leaders of the Orders indeed? If it is courage they lack then let us pray for that courage to speak out against this and other injustices, both for Fr Sean Fagan and the others. Speaking of injustices I think of women, especially the Filipino women who desperately needed to speak to Pope Francis about the reality of following HV. He needs to hear from the women but I didn’t see that he got much opportunity to listen to them.
This is a prayer which we can all say for the courage to listen and to follow the call to rage against injustice and to do something about it!
Prayer
Jesus,
I’ve said yes.
Sometimes a big yes,
but most of the time, little ones:
You call me and I try to say yes,
to follow you where you go,
to go where I feel you are calling me.
But this time, it’s a little harder.
Your invitation, your call,
it seems more like a push than a gentle pull,
a challenge requiring
a little bit of pain for gain-
Today, you’re asking me to change.
Stay close, Christ, and I can say yes
But be patient with me.
Amen
Garrett Gundlach, S.J.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/simply-spirit/benedictine-sister-launched-contemporary-struggle-womens-equality-church
Just want to share this link with you.
Yes, Mary, @ #5. Where are the leaders of the Orders? This link shows what a courageous leader of the Benedictine Sisters did in this situation. Click in to the link below.
http://ncronline.org/printmail/blogs/simply-spirit/benedictine-sister-launched-contemporary-struggle-womens-equality-church
When, I was a young, shy and very quiet student in Ballyboden in the 60s, Gabriel Daly arrived from Carlisle.
Gabriel was a surprise to us and very different to anyone we had met previously. He seemed exotic, strange and a foreign body to us.
Slowly, we (I) began to grasp something of this man and we were stimulated.
We then reached the excitement of a looking at everything with new eyes.
He raised issues we hardly had thought about or seen as relevant. We were invited into the excitement of literature , art, music, culture, politics.
Gabriel’s influence has continued over the years and some of us have caught his excitement, enthusiasm, exuberance.
I am reading Cry of Wonder by Gerry Hughes (in hospital at present) and those questions introduced to us by Gabriel comeback to me. These older men are inspirational.
I am delighted that Gabriel continues to write and continues to refresh us. He is wonderful.
We need bishops like Gabriel. Oh why wasn’t he made a cardinal recently?!
Gabriel: We owe much to you. You keep us alert and alive. You inspire us. We look forward to your book. We need you.
Seamus Ahearne osa
For those interested, Gabriel Daly is speaking on the theme “The Teaching of the Church”: What is it? Can it Change?” in the Milltown Institute, Dublin 6 on Tuesday March 10 at 7:30PM,as part of the 2015 Spring Series of Public Lectures.
Next Tuesday 27th January, Celine Mangan OP is speaking on “Bible and Ecology”.Promising!
Mary@3. You make a very important point indeed about the leaders in the Orders. This is an issue which members of orders should seriously consider when they are choosing their leaders. “He who loses his (career) for my sake”!!!