I put a lot of stock in the Venerable Fulton Sheen's theory that history has progressed, since at least the birth of Christ, in a succession of roughly five hundred year long epochs. According to this theory we are presently at the end of an age that began with the Reformation in the early 1500's. Changes in epoch are rarely peaceful, and it takes time; decades or even a century or so, for the new normal to settle in. On the worldly level we are still in the process of secularization that began with the French Revolution. In the Church we are still coming to grips with the meaning of the Second Vatican Council, and how it's pastoral initiatives should be interpreted theologically and, implemented. We are in the final phase of the secularizing of Western society, but are only in the middle of the project that is the implementation of Vatican II. In some ways the scandals we are experiencing, and fault lines that they have exposed, are an extension the epochal changes we are passing through.
What is the meaning of Vatican II and how should it be implemented? This is not easy to say. I'm reminded of the story about a well loved Salesian who had died. A year or so after he'd passed away one of his lay devotees asked another confrere when the process of canonization was going to be initiated. The Salesian retorted dryly, "When all the witnesses are dead." My point in bringing up this anecdote isn't to imply that this particular Salesian wasn't holy, or that Vatican II was in anyway flawed. But for many who lived through the Council, especially if they were young, it was a defining, if not the defining moment of their lives. For priests and religious especially, who were either newly minted or still in formation when the documents were being promulgated, there is a nostalgic enthusiasm surrounding that period. They had hopes and dreams for what the Council was trying to do that may or may not be the case. I feel sometimes as if they have tried to impose a meaning, or push an agenda, that was important to them, but may not be all that important to the generations that have followed, and may not even be a part of what the Council was trying to do. The struggle over how the Council should be interpreted is really only going to be settled in the decades ahead, when those not so emotionally invested in desired outcomes have passed from the stage (I'm including myself in this category). Then those with more objective eyes, freed from preconceived agendas will be able to see the project home.
Right now the struggle goes on at the edges, between the enthusiasts of rupture and the guardians of a mythic past. Human beings aren't all that creative, and on this point we seem even less so. We drive ahead while looking in the rear view mirror, as Marshall McLuhan put it. But some see as far back as the '50's while others are stuck in 1968. Neither era was perfect, and both eras are gone, never to be recovered. What the Spirit is guiding us toward probably looks nothing like the felt banner and paper mâché butterflies of the 70's, when I grew up, and even less like the fiddle backs of the counter-reformation era. But these paradigms, or some variation on them, is all we really know. What both sides, progressive and conservative alike, are engaging in is an exercises in repackaging doubling for authentic development. Rather than being open to truly new possibilities we are struggling over agendas, that no matter how novel they appear are really rooted in the past.
Regrettably, these divisions that have been present in the Church for quite a while now have only deepened. The Holy Father has become a polarizing figure, and the scandals have made his critics more emboldened. In the past they would hint at what they found troubling in the Pope’s pronouncements, but now they feel justified in not simply questioning or criticizing, but actually demanding his resignation over how he has handled the sex abuse crisis thus far. His supporters have rallied around him, and the Holy Father himself has maintained a disciplined silence, punctuated by not so cryptic daily homilies addressing those who seem to revel in the scandals. The attitude one has on how Francis has handled the crisis is a litmus test for how he or she views his papacy as a whole. If you are critical of his leadership in this area it means you want to scuttle Amoris Laetitia, turning back the clock on Vatican II. If you defend the Pope it means you’re for leading the Church down the road to secularized Protestantism. We are at a change of epoch, for sure, and mood is apocalyptic.
What this change of epoch is going to look like once the dust settles I'm hesitant to predict. I'll go as far as to posit that we are being called back to a simpler faith. This doesn’t mean that we are being called to live as Catholics did in the first century, or fourth or seventeenth. It is an age of the Church that is now, rooted in the eternal Truth responding to the needs of the present moment with our hope in the Kingdom to come. This doesn’t mean change of doctrine, or even discipline. It means getting to the root of what the Master meant when he said we have to be converted so as to be like children. It means an open acceptance of God’s will, especially when it contravenes our own desires and the wider conventional wisdom. In an age that makes economics the standard by which morality is judged, we live a detached poverty. In an age that makes sexual pleasure the highest experience and sexual proclivity the basis of personal identity, we live a disinterested chastity. In an age that puts the will to power as the prime directive, we live a dynamic obedience to God’s will.
We are at a point in time that seems to confirm the prophecies of our Lady of Akita, where the Blessed Mother spoke of a crisis that pits bishops against bishops. But some of the Pope's strongest critics and defenders right now come from within the laity (especially his critics). There is a feeling that the clerics haven't governed the Church correctly and now it's time for the lay faithful to step up. We shouldn't be shocked by this. They have heard from their pastors for over fifty years that the Church isn't a hierarchical pyramid, with the pope sitting on top and the pew sitters at the base, with religious and clergy stacked up on top of them. The Church is instead a circle of collaboration with the pope as the center of unity. The rallying cry had been the "Church is the People of God," not the institution or the clergy. It's going to come as news to some, but they actually believe that, and prelates on both sides of the divide are going to have to come to grips with it.
As I've written in the past I am hopeful because I'm a Christian. As a Salesian I'm optimistic, but not delusional. Christ has won the victory, but we are still a Church struggling, freed from slavery like the Israelites of old, but still wandering in the desert, awaiting entrance into the eternal Promised Land. The present crisis won't kill the Church, but it has already maimed her. Whatever the future paradigm will be, at its core will be greater simplicity, humility, fidelity and active participation of the laity in the actual governing of the institution. The future won't be realized, and the scandals adequately handled, until the agendas are put aside and the real issues at hand dealt with honestly.
No comments:
Post a Comment