Catholic Sensibility

The fostering of friendships. One thing that strikes me about this is how much we lay Catholics have gotten off track on this principle. Especially in St Blog's, one sees dividing lines along ideological premises. We may not be bishops, but I fail to see how the principles involved do not apply to us laity in our dealings with one another. If we weren't Catholics, one would expect the virtues of humility, mildness, charity, and love. That we are and we lack these: this is a serious problem.

And CD 13 does apply a nod to the modern media methods:

When we discuss the liturgy, many of us speak of missing a sense of “reverence.” What is this absence? What is “reverence”? Perhaps it is when a choir movingly sings an Easter cantata. Perhaps it is a dramatic silence. These things happened at Frank Macchia’s church. But, as he writes, then “came a loud cry in tongues from a woman somewhere in the auditorium. She followed with a series of cries in tongues, which were not spoken as much as they were wept.” Dr Macchia, an Assemblies of God theologian, tells us that these cries show a response to the presence of the Holy Spirit “which is ultimately too deep for words” – they are, he says, powerful mysteries that are sacramental, announcing beyond the capacities of ordinary language that “God is here.”

Would we consider this sort of worship, spontaneous and artless, properly “reverent”?

To better understand “reverence,” let’s look at what St Paul says about speaking in tongues in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 14. (I’m here indebted to an article in the current Journal for the Study of the New Testament by the Church of Scotland priest Stephen Chester.) In particular, Paul writes, “So if the whole church meets in one place and everyone speaks in tongues, and then uninstructed people or unbelievers should come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds?” (14:23). The New American Bible’s translation for “mainesthe,” “out of your minds,” would seem to suggest that speaking in tongues is not immediately “reverent” – to the outsider, it connotes insanity or frenzy. Paul would seem to be criticizing a form of “irreverence.” I don’t think that this conclusion would be all that counterintuitive to many of us.

But if we look deeper, we will discover two different and rather counterintuitive conclusions: many people did find being out of one’s mind rather “reverent,” and this “reverence” presented a problem for Paul. In the Phaedrus, Plato has Socrates state that “the greatest of blessings comes to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods.” “When they have been mad,” Socrates says - using the same vocabulary as St Paul, the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona “have conferred many splendid benefits upon Greece both in private and public affairs.” But only when they have been mad. Philo of Alexandria later applied this “mad” version of inspiration to the Hebrew prophets: “the mind is evicted at the arrival of the divine spirit, but when that departs the mind returns to its tenancy.” Besides this Platonic tradition of leaving behind ordinary rationality, the Greeks also took part in the cult of Dionysus, which involved a good deal of dancing and shouting that could resemble speaking in tongues. Pausanius says that Dionysus’ female worshippers were “maddened” by his inspiration. Dr Chester concludes that we can retranslate 1 Cor 14:23b as “will they not say that you are inspired?”

But if the tongues would appear impressive and “religious” to the outsider, why does Paul still prefer the wisdom of prophecy (1 Cor 14:24)? While speaking in tongues is the uttering of “mysteries in spirit” (1 Cor 14:2), and Paul gives thanks to God that he speaks in tongues more than the Corinthians (1 Cor 14:18), unintelligible tongues cannot fully communicate the Gospel. Their unintelligibility cannot help the listener distinguish between God and “mute idols” (1 Cor 12:2), and Paul commends praying “with the mind” (1 Cor 14:15) for the sake of the uninstructed. Likewise, the Corinthian believers’ reliance on tongues won’t create spiritual maturity within them. Paul here channels Isaiah 28. Both the Septuagint and the Targum’s renditions of Isaiah 28:10 suggest that God, through the Assyrians, will speak to Israel “with a stammering lip and with alien tongue,” for God had earlier spoken a more intelligible message about giving rest to the weary “yet they would not hear” (MT). Paul here reconfigures Isaiah, writing, “It is written in the law: ‘By people speaking strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to me, says the Lord’” (1 Cor 14:21). Paul says that God has now spoken to people with tongues, yet, once more (and “even so”), they will not hear. They will be trapped in the spiritual distress described in Isaiah 28:7-9 (“all the tables are covered with filthy vomit”). Tongues remain “a sign not for those who believe but for unbelievers,” because, while unbelievers might initially be drawn to them as a sign of inspiration, believers really grow in their faith through prophetic utterances. And even the unbeliever is able to say “God is really in your midst” only as a response to prophecy.

In Dr Macchia’s church, after the woman spoke in “a series of cries in tongues,” an interpretation came from the congregation. “It was by no means a translation of the tongues, since no words were adequate to capture fully those glossolalic cries. The interpreter functioned more like a critic who struggles to interpret a work of art.” But he showed how the woman’s cries were “taken up in the much larger mystery of the redemption drama of Christ’s death and resurrection and of the final redemption to come.” The tongues are not left uninterpreted and unintelligible.

Before I wear out my welcome, I think that I want to ask two questions:

Do we have a concept of “reverence” that grasps how the spontaneity and ecstasy of tongues can be a sign for unbelievers, or is our sense of “reverence” much too limited?

Are we unaware of the danger of depending upon “reverence,” forgetting Paul’s claim that he “would rather speak five words with my mind, so as to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor 14:19), even though tongues are truly “mysteries”?

The general law of the Church grants the faculty to each diocesan bishop to dispense, in a particular case, the faithful over whom they legally exercise authority as often as they judge that it contributes to their spiritual welfare, except in those cases which have been especially reserved by the supreme authority of the Church.

Curia, enter stage right in Christus Dominus 9

In exercising supreme, full, and immediate power in the universal Church, the Roman pontiff makes use of the departments of the Roman Curia which, therefore, perform their duties in his name and with his authority for the good of the churches and in the service of the sacred pastors.

However, the Vatican Council recommended these offices be reorganized and adapted for the needs of the present, presumably to keep the notion of service to the local bishops and their dioceses at the forefront. CD 10 suggests these offices be widened from their Italian make-up, inclusive of a catholic Church, looking to diocesan bishops for curial department membership, and even lay people.

Finally, the fathers of the council think it would be most advantageous if these same departments would listen more attentively to laymen who are outstanding for their virtue, knowledge, and experience. In such a way they will have an appropriate share in Church affairs.

It would be good to see even more lay people, but note that the definition of what sort of share would be "appropriate" is left to the judgment of the pope and curial heads.

Your model of the church is Sacrament. The church is the effective sign of the revelation that is the person of Jesus Christ. Christians are transformed by Christ and then become a beacon of Christ wherever they go. This model has a remarkable capacity for integrating other models of the church. For the record, my results: Mystical Communion Model 56% Servant Model 56% Sacrament model 56% Herald Model 22% Institutional Model 17% Fred asked me what I thought of this quiz. It's the first internet one I've taken. I landed in a tie for three of Avery Dulles' Five Models of the Church. No real surprise I scored low on institution, though some observers might think I'm turning positively ultramontanist for registering 17%. It also says I'm your guy for integrating liberals and conservatives. Maybe I should've been a diplomat, eh? Quizzes like this are a fun diversion, but I think people are best quantified by their interactions with others, not a set of questions for which there are occasional difficult answers. Fred notes that "the selection and pairing of songs is calculated to amuse and confuse." I agree. If this quiz is not Catholic enough or sensible enough as is, perhaps you have a suggestion or two for improvement. The song choices seem a bit lame, but quizzes like this are meant to sort people quickly and easily to one side or another. What is really telling about the quizzes is not where a person lands in the final judgment, but how close it was to get them there. The longer the quiz, the more accurate it tends to be. Thoughts?

By the way, here's the link: http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=49752

Talking To One Another from Neil Dhingra

In a question-and-answer session last year, Archbishop Rowan Williams spoke of the “dismissiveness” and “rawness of anger” in some of the e-mail messages sent to him. About the “vitriolic” tenor of the disagreements in the Anglican Communion, Dr Williams said, “Somebody some day ought to write a thesis on the spirituality of e-mail because that has something to do with all this.” Perhaps one day somebody will also write a thesis on the spirituality of blogs. But more generally, how should Christians speak to one another? I’d like to look at a recent popular work by the Presbyterian minister, Thomas G. Long - Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian.

It might be easy to conclude that it doesn’t really matter how we speak to one another, as long as we say the right things. But, as Dr Long tells us, we often figure out what we believe by first saying things out loud. “The most effective Bible study groups, for example, allow for a free flow of honest conversation, questioning, probing, exploration, and even skepticism, because it is the experience of such groups that putting ideas into words in dialogue with others is an important aspect of how we come to know and believe the wisdom of the Scripture. When we talk about our faith, we are not merely expressing our beliefs; we are coming more fully and clearly to believe. In short, we are always talking ourselves into being Christian.”

In order to “talk ourselves into being Christian,” we will first need to avoid letting “God” stand in for political ambition or conventional wisdom. We’ll have to abstain from any cheapening of the Holy Name – Thomas Merton once complained that “God is Love” was being used so thoughtlessly that to say it was like saying “Eat Wheaties.” To speak and hear about God, we might instead have to prepare ourselves for a disconcerting experience – the amazement of the people of Jerusalem at the “boldness of Peter and John” (Acts 4:13). Dr Long asks us to remember when Harvard asked Alexander Solzhenitsyn to speak at their commencement. Instead of the usual inoffensive clichés, Solzhenitsyn, resembling an Old Testament Prophet, claimed that the “spiritual life” was being destroyed by the “ruling party” in the East and “commercial interests” in the West. We should always have the sense that Christianity is a distinct (and sometimes disturbing) way of speaking patterned after the testimony of Jesus Christ, always marked by the sense of constant pilgrimage. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news,” St Paul says.

If we let the way we speak be shaped by being on this “Way” (Acts 9:2), we can’t merely speak of God “as a pious form of marketing” either – our words must not be reduced to the measures of church growth, institutional self-perpetuation, or cultural success. Again, our speech must always be a testimony or witness to Jesus Christ, “the faithful witness” (Rev 1:5) whose own testimony was validated by the Resurrection and whose return we await. You must learn to speak in this way just like you would learn to speak Spanish (if not elvish). You cannot become a Christian by merely reading a catechism anymore than you can become a Texan by watching John Wayne movies. This process will often require following rules – the Rule of St Benedict carefully instructs the monks on how to speak (“gently and without laughter, humbly and seriously, in few and sensible words”). You have to “talk yourself” into being Christian; you yourself have to follow this “Way.”

But what does this Christian speech, this “testimony,” actually look like if it isn’t merely a matter of being doctrinally correct or using religious phrases? Think of Merton’s “second conversion,” when on the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville he was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that [he] loved all these people.” Merton wrote, “I have the immense joy of being human, a member of the race in which God himself became incarnate.” What Merton had always professed in worship had suddenly become real even on the very ordinary streets of Kentucky. “Christian speech” is speech that has been shaped by the experience of worship. Many Christians begin services with the words, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth; worship the Lord with gladness.” Christian speech testifies to the holiness and neglected epiphanies that lie around us. Worship involves a confession of sin. Christian speech has the honesty and courage to face our own brokenness, and testify to the realities of forgiveness and reconciliation. In worship, we hear, “Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Pet 2:10). Christian speech testifies to the dignity and value of those whose humanity is being threatened. Even, I daresay, when Christians are talking about politics.

Christian speech also must not be selfish, because we know that joy comes from abandoning self-absorption. As Thomas Merton said, “In an age where there is much talk about ‘being yourself’ I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else.” This is especially true in prayer, as it is surprisingly easy to “heap up empty phrases” (Matt 6:7). Christians will be unwilling to distort the truth even for a good cause, always aware of the mandate to empty themselves (and their lesser goals) before the greater reality of God and the neighbor. Selfishness remains a temptation, even if we are saying the right things. Dr Long recalls a Christian radio talk-show during which the host was trying to “prove” the truth of Christianity to a hesitant listener with “unassailable proof,” no less. Dr Long worries that the host’s sense of urgency about conversion prevented him from taking time to understand the listener – she had become an object, a potential statistic. Dr Long even conjectures, “When we ourselves are plagued with doubts, one tactic is to turn that energy outward and to fortify ourselves by seeking to persuade others,” because most beliefs, even for supposedly rugged individuals, are socially maintained. For the host, the ultimate purpose of his “unassailable proof” might not have been to give his testimony to another, but to use the listener’s submission to reinforce his own precarious self-conception as a convinced Christian and a gifted evangelist. Christian speech sometimes means letting go. Once Henri Nouwen confronted a seeker (who wanted the famous author to solve all his problems) with the simple truth, “Christianity is not for getting your life together.” Instead, Nouwen wrote, he could only offer hospitality, “not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.” The seeker eventually came around.

Nouwen’s renunciation of a sort of powerful guru-status was an act of humility, but we should not confuse it with accommodation. Christian speech “offers them space where change can take place” by courageously, if at times quietly, offering testimony that, in Rowan Williams’ words, “History does not ultimately lie in the hands of the slaughterer,” that the simply naivety of the Golden Rule is worth remembering even in the midst of warfare. The avoidance of testimony, whether through the safe recitation of “unassailable proof” or a compromised silence, comes under judgment – “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account of every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt 12:36). This judgment is real, even if it is the judgment of the God who loves us.

When we converse at St Blog’s, does the way we speak testify to the realities of holiness, reconciliation, and the sheer gratuity of the Father’s love? Is the very shape of our speech marked by the humility that offers others “space where change can take place” on our collective pilgrimage? Do we speak like Christians? Or do we really have some work to do?

On the Way to Christus Dominus

from Neil Dhingra

As Todd reminded us, the first chapter of Christus Dominus says, “By virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college, bishops are constituted as members of the episcopal body.” This “order of bishops” succeeds the “college of apostles,” and we can speak of a “collegiate power in union with the pope.” What does all this college-talk mean? I’m sorry to say that figuring this out might mean going through a bit of history. But at least I can offer the distinguished Assumptionist theologian George Tavard as a guide (see The Jurist 64 [2004] 82-115).

We’ll begin with the announcement of the Second Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959. An Antepreparatory Commission then gathered recommendations from bishops, superior generals, Roman dicasteries, and universities. These recommendations now fill sixteen rather thick volumes. Fr Tavard tells us that we can sense a general expectation that Vatican II would complete the work of Vatican I by unfolding a doctrine of the episcopate. For instance, Archbishop Emile Guerry of Cambrai would elaborate that, in his opinion, bishops were members of an episcopal college that succeeded the apostolic college. They were “sponsors” of the gospel mission to the world, bearing the weight of the whole Church in communion and solidarity with (and under) the bishop of Rome. Many bishops also happened to think that the centralization of Church government under Pius XII had gone too far.

Fifteen conciliar commissions were created on the feast of Pentecost, June 5, 1960; the Theological Commission drafted the schema De Ecclesia. The Council itself began on October 11, 1962. De Ecclesia was presented on Friday, November 30, 1962. The reception was chilly – Emile-Joseph de Smedt, Bishop of Bruges, described the text as expressing “triumphalismus, clericalismus, jurisidicismus.” The question of episcopal collegiality soon came up in the following debates. In a written communication, the Melkite bishop of Aleppo, Athanase Toutoungy, presented the venerable Eastern theology of collegiality: “In each of the Churches one recognizes the complete notion of the universal Church, … and … in the universal Church one finds the lineaments of each of the particular Churches.” John XXIII had hoped that the Council would end by Christmas. This proved to be impossible; the Council outlasted Good Pope John, who went to his reward on June 3, 1963. He was followed by Pope Paul VI.

During the Second Session of the Council, it became clear that the bishops were not in agreement about collegiality. Between October 4 and October 15, 31 bishops spoke in favor of the doctrine, 18 expressed reservations, and two speakers were entirely negative. One of the latter was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who worried that collegiality would destroy papal primacy and conferences of bishops would ruin the authority of the bishop in his diocese. This would not be Lefebvre’s last worry. But the majority seemed to support the idea that there was an episcopal college in succession to the apostolic college. One would enter this college by a sacramental episcopal ordination. This college was inseparable from the universal primacy of the bishop of Rome who was its head. The Church only possessed one supreme authority whether exercised by a Council or the pope by himself, but never in isolation from the college. And all political analogies, noted this majority, were inadequate.

Cardinal Leo-Joseph Suenens, moderator of the session, forced a vote on five questions on October 15, 1963. One of them invited approval or disapproval of the claim that the college of bishops succeeds the college of apostles in the tasks of evangelization, sanctification, and pastoral care, and that it has authority over the entire Church with its head, the bishop of Rome. The vote was 1808 to 336. But among the opponents were the secretary, vice president, and president of the Doctrinal Commission. The president, the formidable Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, claimed that the apostles had never acted collegially, with only the possible exception of the Council of Jerusalem.

So, as Fr Tavard says, the intersession between the second and third sessions “was a theatre of considerable agitation. There was intense lobbying around the pope by cardinals and bishops who systematically opposed the doctrine of collegiality.” The fateful Third Session began on September 14, 1964. It was announced that the overall vote on the revised text De Ecclesia, now in the form of the constitution Lumen Gentium, would take place on September 30^th. A representative of those who had difficulties with collegiality was unusually allowed to speak alongside the presentations of Lumen Gentium – Bishop Franjo Franic, Bishop of Split (Yugoslavia), did his best to show that collegiality was a theological novelty that contradicted the teachings of Vatican I. But the vote on sections 18-23 of Lumen Gentium, which would establish collegiality, was 1624 to 42, with 572 others giving a placet iuxta modum (in other words, a “yes” with a proposed amendment).

The principle of episcopal collegiality comes from three doctrinal convictions, all expressed in Lumen Gentium. The Lord, it is believed, is present in the ministry of bishops. The sacramental character of episcopal ordination means that “bishops, in a resplendent and visible manner, take the place of Christ himself, teacher, shepherd, and priest, and act as his representatives.” And the bishop of Rome is the visible head of the episcopal body. In his closing address to the Third Session, Paul VI repeated that the doctrine of episcopal collegiality did not nullify papal primacy, but meant that the Church’s government was “at the same time monarchical and hierarchical.” Paul said that he intended to facilitate episcopal collegiality by creating appropriate commissions and reforming the Roman Curia.

The Fourth Session of Vatican II began on September 14, 1965. On the very next day, Paul VI, in order to “tighten the bonds of our union with the bishops,” created the Synod of Bishops. The Council never revisited the debate on episcopal collegiality. It perhaps further hinted at the relevance of collegiality in Gaudium et Spes, which suggested that the mission of the Church required that “all who constitute the one People of God will be able to engage in ever more fruitful dialogue, whether they are pastors or other members of the faithful.” More explicitly, the decree Christus Dominus, promulgated on October 28, 1965, at the end of the session, endorsed the creation of the Synod of Bishops: “This council, as it will be representative of the whole Catholic episcopate, will bear testimony to the participation of all bishops in hierarchical communion in the care of the universal Church.”

We can ask whether the Synod of Bishops has succeeded in this task. In a 1996 lecture, Archbishop John Quinn said, “Many Bishops feel that issues which they would like to discuss responsibly cannot come up.” We can also ask if the collegial principle extends to a particular Church itself, so that the priests of a diocese share responsibility with their bishop for the care of the diocese. “All priests, in union with bishops, so share in one and the same priesthood and ministry of Christ that the very unity of their consecration and mission requires their hierarchical communion with the order of bishops” (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 7).

Well, what do you think?

Together with its head, the Roman pontiff, and never without this head it exists as the subject of supreme, plenary power over the universal Church. But this power cannot be exercised except with the agreement of the Roman pontiff.

However, it is clear from the outset that bishops are not vicars of the pope. It is certainly clear that bishops are to be seen in a higher regard than an upper pyramid level in a marching army. The upper Catholic hierarchy is clearly a body that shares the responsibilities for teaching and pastoral ministry, and as we shall see in later sections of CD, not necessarily limited to one's own diocese. Also commentary on the role of a bishop in and the right to participate in an ecumenical council:

This power however, "is exercised in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council." Therefore, this sacred synod decrees that all bishops who are members of the episcopal college, have the right to be present at an ecumenical council.

Section 4 concludes with a quote from Vatican I:

The exercise of this collegiate power in union with the pope is possible although the bishops are stationed all over the world, provided that the head of the college gives them a call to collegiate action, or, at least, gives the unified action of the dispersed bishops such approval, or such unconstrained acceptance, that it becomes truly collegiate action.

Lumen Gentium 22, 23, and 25 is referenced as CD briefly describes the Synod of Bishops and its purpose:

Bishops chosen from various parts of the world, in ways and manners established or to be established by the Roman pontiff, render more effective assistance to the supreme pastor of the Church in a deliberative body which will be called by the proper name of Synod of Bishops. Since it shall be acting in the name of the entire Catholic episcopate, it will at the same time show that all the bishops in hierarchical communion partake of the solicitude for the universal Church.