Encouraging Rot in the Life of the Church

THURSDAY, 17 MARCH 2011
The Protestant Posture
By Bevil Bramwell, OMI

In anticipation of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Germany later this year, more than 200 German “theologians” have issued “The Church in 2011: A Necessary Departure.” In this laborious piece of prose, they explain how the Church has to change. The usual thing . . . ordination of women and so on! The imperative is theirs, based on the imagined “magisterium” of the university. This institutional conceit has been an issue since the sixties, although there have been attempts to try to link it back to the service of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages, when that institution was a center of research on questions that were posed by various bishops.

Something that the “Catholic theologians” – in inverted commas because it’s difficult to say how such freelancers are related to the historic Catholic Church – do not seem much to consider is that they are in a country with a Protestant majority. Perhaps such a national setup puts pressures on Catholic thinking when people do not take the necessary care to identify where they get their premises.

The classic case of course was Karl Rahner, S.J.’s insistence on the ordination of women based on the cultural argument that, if patriarchalism is dead in the culture, then women should be ordained in the Church. This might be plausible if the original choice of apostles was purely cultural. But if we take a step back to THE priest in whose priesthood priests participate, then we come to Christ himself and the non-accidental act of God in incarnating himself as a man, Jesus of Nazareth. Male priests express the male priesthood of Christ. Culture is more of a surface expression, while gender is ontological, i.e., it has to do with our very being. And in this case it is tied to the decision of God to incarnate as a male.*

The word Protestant implies defining oneself in reaction against something. It imposes an a priori framework on the formation of concepts. The adversarial stance removes something substantial, namely: “All in the Church must preserve unity in essentials.” (Vatican II) This is not simply an authoritarian statement. Rather, it is authoritative because the truth is unitary and it exists in the “Catholic Church [which] has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace.” (Vatican II) Of course, the German way is to approach this adversarial structure intellectually and to frame the challenge in an intellectual way.

The Catholic situation in the United States is similar, but the response is different. It is not intellectual. Listening to Nancy Pelosi trying to teach our bishops about Saint Augustine or to Ted Kennedy seeking to impose the view of a narrow cultural elite on the Church about several questions, no one would be led to think that American Catholic dissent is intellectual. It is more a kind of spoiling action, a political muddying of pools, a way to introduce a little rot into the system.

It is still an adversarial approach, but it is deliberately – almost openly – subversive. It embodies a political strategy in line with the American fascination with politics. And it ultimately relies on the conviction that truth is merely political. The American approach lets some professors teach seminarians that the priesthood started in the fourth century or that a priest is just like a Protestant minister. The subversion is practiced because this kind of thinking fragments the Church and acts as a spoiler when the priest is in a parish. Bishops who allow such things to be taught in seminaries in effect leave problematic colleges for their successors to deal with.

The Protestant posture, if I may call it that, comes down to making the same mistake that Rahner made: confusing orders of reality. Rahner took the merely socio-cultural idea of patriarchalism and gave it an importance that is beyond its value. The accidental nature of culture does not supersede the essential nature of the human being. The discussion of the nature of the Incarnation is not about accidents, but about essences, divine and human. God does not act randomly. The Incarnation is a deliberate choice on the part of God. The choice was that the Incarnation would be as a male human being.

When we look at Pelosi and Kennedy’s words, they are confusing the ideas in their social circle with the truths of the Church. These are different orders of reality. The truth of the Church is the truth of Jesus Christ, and that is not to be pushed aside by the solipsistic thinking of an elite that comes and goes, and is remembered, if at all, only as a minor footnote in the history of ideas.

The scary side of American Catholics who choose the Protestant posture is how subversive they are in the different institutions of the Catholic Church. Like the German “theologians,” they undermine the function of the institutions. Like incompetents or embezzlers in a bank, they interfere with the institution’s ability to function. The bank loses its ability to do business and the Church is clouded in its efforts to speak the message of Christ clearly to a world that is, now beyond any reasonable doubt, faring poorly under a false Gospel.


Bevil Bramwell, priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, teaches theology at Catholic Distance University. He holds a Ph.D from Boston College and works in the area of ecclesiology.

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Retrieved March 17, 2011 from http://www.thecatholicthing.org/?task=view

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* PA: As Pope Benedict has pointed out, the "cultural" argument does not hold water in any case, because female priests were extremely common in the (pagan) ancient world.

George Weigel has a nice discussion of the German statement at First Things. The document's program, he points out, is clear if not explicit:

Catholicism is to transform itself into another liberal Protestant sect by conceding virtually every point at issue between classic Christianity and the ambient culture of the post-modern West.

This is the same program that has led liberal Protestantism into a state of rapid dissolution. It reminds one of Michael Rose's point in Goodbye, Good Men, that having driven off faithful, pious aspirants to the priesthood from Catholic seminaries through the corruption of faith and morals, the same people (liberal Catholic nuns, priests, and theologians) responsible then used the shortage of priests for which they bore some significant responsibility to bolster their argument for women priests and married priests in the Roman church.

Weigel considers the German document and its authors as providing us a case to which Leo Rosten's explanation of chutzpa is particularly apposite:

In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defined chutzpa as “…Presumption-plus-arrogance such as no other word, and no other language, can do justice to” and then offered classic examples of chutzpa in action: “Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. A chutzpanik may be defined as the man who shouts ‘Help! Help!’ while beating you up.”

Intellectual rigor and reasoned loyalty

A beautiful reflection on reason, dissent, assent, and loyalty by First Things/The Anchoress blogger Elizabeth Scalia, author of Caring for the Dying With the Help of Your Catholic Faith. I love the expression about intellectualism pickled in its own ego!


The Reasoned Loyalty of Catholicism
Oct 5, 2010
Elizabeth Scalia

In the weeks leading up to the beatification of John Henry Newman, more than one writer asked whether the Anglican convert might be embraced by some, particularly by progressives, as “the patron saint of dissenters.” Newman’s willingness to launch his spacious intellect into debate within the church was so glamorous to contemplate that some writers lost sight of the fact that what is now called his dissent, honed by his openness, was always exercised in full conformity with the church's teaching. Loyalty, as it were, not only won out, it was the ground of this dissent.

Intellectual rigor and loyalty are not mutually exclusive, as some progressives are prone to insist. What Newman models is, perhaps, a willingness to apply one’s own intellect to any question with enough openness as to leave room to be surprised at one’s own conclusions.

In that sense, Newman is hardly the first prominent Catholic to wonder “yes, but . . .” and then prostrate. Dorothy Day was able to reason with such openness, and she self-identified as “an obedient daughter of the church.”

Reasonable Catholicism is reasoned loyalty, or sometimes even loyalty with gritted teeth; it is loyalty that insists upon the application of reason lest its value be questioned. By the same token, intellectualism that is not tempered with loyalty ends up pickling itself in its own ego. Either one, by itself, is incomplete. Both are required.

This openness is the difference between reading Paul’s words to Timothy that women “will be saved in childbearing, provided [they continue] in faith, love and holiness” and either rejecting them as the discriminatory and archaic utterances of a misogynist, or grimly trying to conform to the stricture without question, which may also mean without understanding, and possibly without charity.

Believing that nothing in Scripture is accidental, Catholics are obliged not to sneer, but to wonder about the theology behind Paul’s words and to discern what in that surprising verse is worth pondering, in an era where human life is held cheap. Can we discern within the verse a notion that women are, in God’s sublime and mysterious mercy, privileged in their ability to assist God in his continual re-entering into our world, disguised as he is within that helpless, vulnerable, and unconditional love that instantly forms between mother and child, father and child, siblings, and grandparents and child?

If we can openly allow ourselves to reason upon the foundational stipulation that God wants only our Good, we can surprise ourselves with our conclusions. Suddenly “misogyny” looks like an expedient and human explanation, and blind obedience looks so unsatisfyingly empty; the whole verse is suddenly fraught with a deeper, holier and ultimately more idealistic meaning than either the intellectualist or the unquestioning loyalist could have imagined.

The church is egalitarian in whom it regards as holy; the canon of saints includes the highly educated Augustine and the loyal little bourgeoisie known as Therese and calls both of them Doctors of the Church. She recognizes that intellectual gifts are only remarkable because they are, in fact, gifts, conferred over a lifetime, as with Newman, or spontaneously bestowed, as upon Catherine of Siena.

When intellectualism and loyalty are open each other, all understanding is enlarged. The first without the second breeds cynicism, and the second without the first tempts it. And both breed complacency and self-satisfaction, and close us off from the mystery.

Sometimes, the commingling of faith and reason is a neat and natty thing. More often it is a bit messy, but once our intellects have thrashed a matter to its frayed ends, we realize that we have stumbled into mystery and then, if we are open, we (very reasonably) throw our hands up to heaven and submit to it, because we know mystery for a good adventure, and we are loyal to it.

It is a loyalty that peers into a mirror, darkly, but is never wholly blind.

Elizabeth Scalia is a contributing writer for FIRST THINGS. She blogs at The Anchoress.

Retrieved October 5, 2010 from http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/10/the-reasoned-loyalty-of-catholicism



John Henry Newman An essay in aid of a grammar of assent

On "Liberal" Dissidents and the Crisis

In the thread mentioned in my last post, Anne Rice often quotes dissidents--even extreme ones like Hans Kung--and columnists as vehemently opposed to the hierarchy and Magisterium as Maureen Dowd of the NYT. When the anti-papal and anti-Benedict bias of these sources is pointed out, Ms. Rice observes that they are sincere and we can learn from them. Both points are true as far as I know, but there is much more to be said about the dissidents' own role and responsibility in this sordid saga. And saying it cannot be dismissed as mere defensiveness. Here is my response:
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There is clearly a difference of perception here and repetition and autobiographical statements do not make the assertions more persuasive. (I do not mean that disrespectfully--I am a huge fan of Ms. Rice's recent work.)

On the question of "liberals" (those who have consistently and often contemptuously opposed the leadership of JP II and Benedict), they may well be sincere and we should learn from opponents as well as friends.

But if we want to understand the current scandal and crisis in the Church, we have to face up to these "liberals'" (or dissidents may be a better term) contribution to it. These include a semi-secularization of Catholics who are terribly under-catechized and whose beliefs and behavior are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the rest of society, on matters from abortion to the Real Presence, as well as sexual permissiveness. It seems the rate of sexual abuse of adolescents by clergy also rose in this period to approximate much of the rest of the male population.

This atmosphere of permissiveness, dilettantism, a gay subculture that disdained the vow of chastity and the Church's moral guidance in general, permeated the seminaries and infected the priests who graduated from them. The problem was exacerbated enormously by theologians like Kung and Curran who treated almost everything in the Church's teaching on faith and morals as up for grabs. (The Church is also not a graduate theological seminar or playground for academics and intellectuals.)

If we want a full accounting for the abuse scandal and assurance it will not be repeated, we need to face up to this issue and not sweep it under the rug.

Clergy Abuse and the Pope: A response to Anne Rice

For a couple of weeks now I have been participating in an amazon.com discussion thread begun by Anne Rice, a writer whose recent work I greatly admire. I have made several contributions but become increasingly frustrated by the way this (like other threads) quickly starts going round in circles with no real movement in response to postings from different perspectives. Repetition and autobiographical statements produce no value added. The thread is at

http://www.amazon.com/tag/catholicism/forum/ref=cm_cd_pg_newest?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx260WUKFZL9IBC&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx6HSNWJ207P29

A new participant, NY2VA, has made an excellent, clear contribution that does actually clarify things and take the discussion forward. Whether it goes forward from here remains to be seen. NY2VA has kindly agreed to allow me to repost her or his post with the disclaimer that the points it makes derive from conversations with others. (Don't they always?) Here's the post. It is a response to Anne Rice's points.

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Posted on Apr. 18, 2010 1:48 PM PDT
Last edited by the author 2 hours ago
NY2VA says:
As a gifted and skilled author you appreciate the value of words, what they mean, and the importance of their proper usage when reasoning through a problem in order to arrive at valid conclusion. We are told to let yes mean yes and no mean no. Just so.

Pedophilia is the inherently abusive commission of sexual relations with prepubescent children. The sexual abuse committed by some Catholic clergy does not fit the definition of the word being applied. So, why such insistence on using the word? Some 80% of the sexual abuse cases in the US involved boys between the ages of 11 and 17. That makes them adolescents. Male adolescents. In the spirit of calling things what they are, there is no pedphlilia scandal. There is an ephebophilia scandal. The men in question abandoned their sacred vows and succumbed to male hebephilia, attraction to pubescent male children. Ergo, there is a homosexuality problem.

The problem is that homosexual men who did not control their sexual desires were given positions of authority and trust, and placed in close proximity to adolescent boys. And when they victimized them, they were counseled and transferred - often based on the "best," most current psychiatric theory - instead of being arrested and imprisoned. The blame for the problems belongs to the men themselves, and the bishops of those times, predominately the 60's and 70's, not to the pope of today.

Regarding your oft repeated, loyal Catholic, hypothetical inquiry as to whether Pope Benedict XVI should be punished if he is found to have done wrong, of course he should. If he cheats at cards, he should expect to be horsewhipped. If Tony Blair is found to have embezzled millions from the Bank of England, he should be jailed. If LeBron James hacks an opponent, he should be whistled for a personal foul. If you do 85 mph in a 45 mph zone, you should be ticketed for reckless driving. And the point is?

I see no constructive use in hypothetical questions. Talking about what someone thinks should happen if something that probably did not happen but possibly might have happened actually did happen is a pointless (at best) and destructive (more likely) parlor game. If you want to discuss the scandal of homosexual abuse of adolescent boys by men who broke their vows and betrayed the trust placed in them by the Catholic Church, and the failure of their superiors to protect their flocks, you will be discussing something real. And some good might come of it.

The use of the political terms liberal and conservative is likewise misguided. The Catholic Church is not a political institution. There is no liberal or conservative Faith. There is orthodox and there is heterodox. Period. One is either obedient, the antidote to the greatest of sins - pride, or one is disobedient, Non serviam! We are all sinners. The priests who broke their vows and abused their charges were disobedient sinners. Had they and the bishops and therapists who enabled their abuse been faithful to the Magisterium, no scandal of this scale would exist. It is only when we insist on being our own Magisterium - Non serviam! - that we go wrong.

God love you.

Viva Cristo Rey.

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For those who do not know, the last words of the above post were made famous as the last words of a great Catholic martyr of Mexico's secularist government, the Jesuit priest Miguel Pro. He was killed by firing squad in front of news cameras November 23, 1927. (See Robert Royal's inspiring book, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century.)