Catholic Sensibility

Frequent visitor Fred asked me what I thought of Anthony Esolen's piece in Crisis. Fred wrote, "I liked the beginning, but felt that the conclusion was a bit overstated." That was exactly my take on it. Esolen does well for the first third to half of the artcile--how much time it takes him to set up his point. Then he blunders into a diatribe about everything he doesn't like in the Church, apparently with a seeing eye into the hearts of people who wear pink or who golf on Sundays. The good stuff first: The Church is a gift from God. Grace is the source of human success, not our own efforts. Pride is a stumbling block for us and always has been. People try to control God rather than be guided by Him. The Old Testament is rife with examples of the Israelites "not getting it." Getting around to liturgy, Esolen writes: The worship of God is not, as politics justly is, a human work. To understand that the Church and its liturgy are given to us, says Benedict, is to carve out a legitimate and relatively free arena for politics, while providing for it what it cannot provide for itself, namely, a justification of its fundamental assumptions. But to consider Church and liturgy as man's work is to corrupt one's worship, subtly making it into a way to gain whatever earthly goods one may desire. I think it's important not to slip away from the notion that liturgy is wholly a descent of things from above. Esolen is aware that liturgy involves "... gifts we offer (God) in sacrifice" (Eucharistic Prayer I) and that the same prayer involves our petition to join the community of saints with the acknowledgement that though we don't deserve it, we ask for it all the same. Liturgical chutzpah. Esolen is right to say there's always the bootstrap trap: I can do it myself! But Esolen misconstrues the better of his opponents arguments, stating that the "incessant discussion" for women's ordination is based on human polity, rather than an honest willingness to discern God's will. Esolen tales the front end of his article to lay down his point: The clergy and laymen who cause the most harm in our Church right now are not those few who think of the Church as a powerful job. They are those, and their name is Legion, who think of the Church as a delightful and self-fulfilling hobby. And then he loses it, drawing extreme caricatures of Catholics: "Sashaying choristers with frilly robes, ... (s)oloists, under a tingly spotlight, crooning into the microphone and writhing for emphasis," and describing a scene I've never come across in thirty-five years: a "crooner often displays other parts of her body in more urgent need of cover." Esolen's Church is populated by "(r)ows and rows of the finest virtuosos, of lectors and lectresses, the Everyday Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, the Liturgical Commissars, Commissars of Religious Education, the Financial Commissar, the Grand Imperial Mystic Wizards of the Parish Council, and, thank God for one person who actually does work that is humble, unnoticed, and quite necessary, the janitor." Esolen goes on to praise those "who do their work unobtrusively and humbly, aware that they are not worthy of doing it, and praying that they will perform it in such a way as to help lead some soul to God, or at least not get in that soul's way." The writer ruins an otherwise good point about the meaning of lay ministry and church involvement with people who seem to bother him to the point that he inflates their sins to the size of logs in his mind. There's no point in denying that human beings get in the way of God in Church. They take matters into their own hands. Sometimes, it's out of ignorance, and other times it involves a lack of trust in God ("Somebody'd better do something, and it looks like it's gotta be me.") and occasionally it involves a degree of malice. We've known and seen all of those folks. When the fathers of Vatican II called for a renewed appreciation for the laity and their more energetic participation in the Church, they ... meant, as our Holy Father Benedict has insisted, that the laity should assume the responsibilities of adults in the Faith: fully committed to it and ready to evangelize, to bring Christ where it is inconvenient or difficult for the priest to go—to the oil derrick, down the mine, into the hospital ward, into the chambers of a party meeting, at a city council table. That would be to recognize the charism of the laity, to honor the distinction between church and the secular order, and to affirm that the secular order's health can be restored only in Christ. Good try, but no. The italicized phrase would be a problem. The lay apostolate is not dependent on "where it is inconvenient or difficult for the priest to go," but on the call of baptism. Priests can theoretically serve in public office, run governments and businesses, etc., but it is not appropriate for them to do so. They can also proclaim non-gospel Scriptures, serve as godparents, or bring up the gifts at Sunday Mass, but it is not their role in the Church. Esolen finally lost my attention with "The Church hobbyist contracts the sphere of the Church to the space within the building's walls, and then makes that space as amenable to himself as he can," followed by a long narrative on golfing. Some hobbyists have gone to seminary and involved themselves in their hobby to the exclusion of work. And many lay people, too. The lay apostolate, whether it is a full-time life's endeavor, or a "hobby" of sorts, demands certain qualities: - Sacrifice - Emotional maturity - An ability to let go - A deep and fulfilling spiritual life - Openmindedness, especially with people - A thirst for knowledge - The ability and willingness to mentor others to take over And lots of other items, most prominently, and attitude of faith, hope, and love in wading through these and other unlisted qualities. The scantily-dressed crooner of Esolen's imagination is a caricature of all that is wrong with the Church, starting not with the top of the parish heap, but the worst of the world's bishops and moving down from there. But behind every caricature, Esolen's, yours, mine, is a human person who has been called by God, and who is in need of steering to keep to the path of grace. It might well be that Esolen's people really do exist, even though I've never met any quite as flashy as he describes, and no parish I can recall has ever been filled with "commissars." But like it or not, the incarnated Body of Christ is composed of very human, very flawed, very sinful parts. It is the mark of an unorthodox God that He sees fit to make use of commissars and crooners to get into our thick heads a message that lawgivers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and his own Son have tried for ages to get across.