Catholic Sensibility

(from Neil Dhingra)

The Italian journalist Sandro Magister’s latest dispatch is titled (in English translation), “After Cologne: The Remarkable Lesson of Professor Ratzinger.” Unlike a certain bishop-catechist who tried to win over the young people at World Youth Day by reciting Jack Kerouac (!), Magister writes, “Benedict XVI … challenged everyone’s attention span with a difficult explanation of ‘the different nuances of the word ‘adoration’ in Greek and in Latin. The Greek word is proskynesis. It refers to the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure. [...] The Latin word is ad-oratio, mouth to mouth contact, a kiss, an embrace, and hence ultimately love. Submission becomes union, because he to whom we submit is love.’” All too often, we think of the University and the Church as competitors, and Church-related institutions as potential battlegrounds between cold-blooded episcopal claimants to juridical control and the individualistic devotees of academic freedom. It is then very easy to fetishize either the rigidity of church discipline or the romanticism of rebellious critique. And, theologically speaking, we forget either that the Holy Spirit is the patience of abiding and reconciling, or that the same Spirit is for “building up the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12) instead of some sort of splendid isolation. Perhaps the professor-pope, unafraid to speak Greek and Latin in public, will let us see how the University and the Church might, so to speak, save each other. “Can the University and the Church Save Each Other?” is the title of an article by Mike Higton, author of a recent book on another professor-prelate, Rowan Williams. Dr Higton suggests that the University can save the Church from becoming imprisoned within an “instrumental vision” that can only see everything as “fuel for a practical purpose” so that the “disruptive strangeness” of the Gospel is “in danger of being hidden in the rush to use.” The University “can even, at its best, point to the vital uselessness of God.” And, in return, the Church provides an essential wisdom about the spiritual formation that is necessary for any real learning. This might sound rather cryptic (or impossibly utopian), so we’ll look more closely at four keywords – the “contemplative,” “literal reading,” “responsibility,” and “spiritual formation.” Higton defines the “contemplative” over against the “instrumental.” The “instrumental” refers to “processes of learning that simply fill in the gaps within a structure we already possess – perhaps providing information to fill in the details in a picture we have already drawn, perhaps providing skills to enable us to carry out a task we have already formulated.” On the other hand, the “contemplative” “places us before some subject matter that we do not control, and for which our current categories are inadequate.” A good deal of the Church’s activity will be “instrumental,” because bills do need to get paid, but the Church needs to be “contemplative” if it is to be the sacrament of God, for God cannot be the result of a “quest for mastery.” The experience of prayer is actually more like being “overmastered” – “Batter my heart, three person’d God,” says Donne. But the Church can remain sadly imprisoned within the limited horizon of the “instrumental,” thinking only in terms of institutional hygiene or church growth, or defining itself through its “usefulness” to society. Higton suggests that the University can help the Church recover contemplation, for the University (at its best) still preserves “an ethos of learning ‘for the subject matter’s sake’: attention to the difficulty, the awkwardness, the intransigence, the questionability of the subject matter under consideration: useless learning for delight’s sake.” The “instrumental” suffocates spiritual life if it corrodes our patience for difficulty, or suspiciously queries the uselessness of delight. The University can also help the Church recover its reading of the Bible. Higton distinguishes between a “literal reading,” which pays attention “to the ways in which the Bible resists use – the ways in which it is awkward, diverse, and difficult,” and a “spiritual reading,” which “has to find the Bible useful or tie it into the framework of already-known truth.” Now, ideally, the two forms of reading work in partnership, as a “spiritual reading” is the discovery of “strange strands of subterranean connection” that weave a text “back into edification” after it has been found unpalatable or compellingly strange by a “literal reading.” But a Church imprisoned within the “instrumental vision” that only sees everything as “fuel for a practical purpose” will impatiently leap to the “spiritual sense” to find what is useful in the here and now. This is the sort of reading that looks only for proof-texts. This reading leaves little patience for the “questing attention” of the learned exegete’s historical context or hermeneutics, and even less for the monk’s patient meditation – “The image of the ruminant animal quietly chewing its cud was used in antiquity as a symbol of the Christian pondering the Word of God,” as a Benedictine writes. The University often pays more serious attention to texts, providing long and arduous training in disciplines like philology and history. This sort of attentiveness can teach the Church to recover the “literal reading” that “pays serious attention to the strangeness of the text,” and that is the starting point for a more authentic “spiritual reading.” Much talk in Church circles is about “responsiveness” to the present. We are deeply concerned about the attendance numbers at World Youth Day, which dioceses are attracting how many vocations, and where certain spiritual books rank on Amazon’s lists. This is not really a bad thing, but an exclusive accountability to the present (and the measurable) can come at the expense of a wider “responsibility” to tradition - the “allowing [of] what happens here to be called into question by a community which stretches in time and space far beyond the local.” Now, it is easy to argue that “responsibility” and “responsiveness” are always yoked together, but an authentic “responsibility” will remember those “forgotten aspects” of the Church’s past. This is not easy; it might even be disruptive. But we should be unfaithful to the legacy of John Paul II if we fail to realize that “because of the bond which unites us to one another in the Mystical Body, all of us, though not personally responsible and without encroaching on the judgment of God who alone knows every heart, bear the burden of the errors and faults of those who have gone before us." (Incarnationis Mysterium,11). Or if we imagine the history of the Church to be anything less than a polyphony. This is true even if, as a result, we fail to sell as many books. And, as Higton writes, “It is in the University … that the complexity – the deep horrors and occasional joys – of Christians’ historical relationship with Judaism can be uncovered; it is in the University that the strange but powerful struggles of the early Church to affirm the goodness of creation can be explored; it is in the University that the detailed historical context of the division between denominations can be examined.” The University can teach us “responsibility.” But this is only true if the University works ideally – if the professors receive a formation in humility and patience. Higton points out, “Good academic study is a form of spiritual formation – in the sense that (at its best) it is a process in which one is stripped of illusions of control and mastery, and overwhelmed by a subject matter that does not fit neatly into one’s life.” This is hardly automatic, and the Church’s wisdom in spiritual formation might be necessary for the University’s mission. The University just might need some analogue for the Benedictine “workshop” and its practices of transparency (making one’s thoughts known to a spiritual father or mother lest you become trapped in your fantasies), peacemaking (lest communal relations be reduced to rights and reparations), and accountability (a true discernment of persons instead of an destructive oscillation between absolute control and anarchy). Otherwise, the University itself will turn into a place of ideology, personal agendas, and money grubbing that is of no use to the Church at all. So it is probably a good thing if Benedict XVI is also Professor Ratzinger. What do you think?