Popular ignorance
Jan. 29th, 2005 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbOne thing that annoys me a lot is the sheer ignorance that comes out in many comments about the Church. And perhaps the silliest and most widespread notion is the view of the current Pope as some sort of traditionalist authoritarian who has stopped the process of reform initiated by the Second Vatican Council in its track. Ask any non-Catholic about Pope Woityla and you are likely to hear something like, "Oh, dreadful man, stands in the way of progress, benighted reactionary, unfortunately high in charisma, a dictator." Ask any serious Catholic, especially on the conservative side, and you are apt to hear pretty much the opposite; and this is much nearer the truth.
The truth is that this Pope stands for compromise all the way. He has, indeed, made vigorous statements of traditional Catholic doctrine; and he has, in his own person, used all the armoury of modern media to deliver a fundamentally orthodox vision of the Pope, and, by extension, of the Church. But he has never taken one step in one direction without taking an at least as large one in the opposite. He has humiliated the Church in many ways, underwriting documents of historical reassessment which the media have taken for apologies - even where they weren't - and suffering insulting rebukes from that unloveable man, Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow, in his hugely unrewarded quest to be liked among the Orthodox.
His policy on ecclesiastical appointments has been typical. The universal and utterly wrong impression is that the Pope is always looking to nominate conservative extremists, good little Ultramontane soldiers who will ignore the needs of their local communities in order to push an obscurantist Roman line. The truth is pretty nearly the opposite. At the very least, it might be said that he never nominated a conservative without nominating an out-and-out liberal at the same time. In a country such as Scotland, withe two archbishoprics only, this policy is almost comically clear: the Archbishop of Edinburgh, Keith O'Brien, an aggressive liberal, could almost be said to glower across the Lowlands at the Archbishop of Glasgow, the rockbound conservative Mario Conti, the two archioceses staring at each other like the Two Towers of Tolkien's great legend. Both men have been nominated by the current Pope, within a year of each other.
The matter is even more obvious and hilarious (but for its serious long-term effects) at the highest reaches of the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger is generally taken to be the face of the current Pontificate, although in point of fact he had been "discovered" and promoted by Pope Paul VI. Among people who do not know enough about the Church, he is universally taken to be a monster of right-wing reaction, the kind of man who hankers for Francos and Pinochets. This is a vile and false representation, but it reflects a truth - that the Cardinal is the most powerful enemy of the "liberals" today. This is not only because of his powerful position at the head of the Holy Office, with its mandate to defend orthodox doctrine, but because he is highly intelligent, articulate, an excellent writer and theologian, knows more theology and philosophy than any of his opponents - and is long-lived, having just entered a vigorous seventy-eighth year. All this makes him a bad man to have against you. All well and good. But the Pope has also nominated two other German Cardinals, Lehmann of Cologne as Primate of Germany, and Kasper at the head of the Council for Christian Unity, who to all appearances are placed where they are purely to stymie Ratzinger.
Kasper who comes from the University of Tubingen - a notorious centre of opposition to Christianity and Catholicism down at least two centuries - has an ecclesiology that is different in no essential detail from that of the Church of England, and, oddly enough, is rather more authoritarian than Ratzinger's and the Pope's. His idea of the Church moves power away from the Vatican above and the laity below to the individual Bishop, made a nearly independent authority in his own diocese. Considering that the power of the Vatican has grown down the centuries exactly as a court of last resort against the otherwise unlimited power of the local bishop, this seems to me like a charter for the dissolution of the Church, and incidentally for the oppression of the laity. Kasper has other strange opinions, although not as strange as Lehmann's (or O'Brien's, or Martini's, or Flynn's, or Mahoney's, or McCormick); but he takes advantage of his high position to voice them more often. Just lately, for instance, he directly denied Church teaching by stating that, "in some circumstances," Communion could be given to non-Catholics. As for Lehmann, the less said, the better. Not so long ago, he had a public debate with the well-known schismatic theologian Hans Kueng, which was touted as "orthodoxy vs. dissent". Many Catholics quipped, since when has Hans Kueng stood for orthodoxy? For Lehmnann is notorious; indeed, the supposed debate turned into a kind of "liberal" love-in at the expense of traditional Catholic teaching. A rumour says that these exceedingly unlikely appointments were forced on the Pope by the Polish Church, forced in turn by the German (who pass a lot of funds to their poorer colleagues across the Oder) exactly in order to hold Ratzinger down; but, in the last analysis, nobody can compel the Pope. He appoints whom he chooses; and if such pressures existed, John Paul II chose to accept them where he could have rejected them. Let us remember that this is the man who appointed Mahoney to Los Angeles and Rimbert Weakland to Milwaukee.
Conspiracy theorists would know what to make of this. The Pope is a freemason or a closet Protestant or a Communist sympathizer, continuing in the evil tradition of John XXIII and Paul VI. That, of course, is nonsense. The personal orthodox faith of John Paul II cannot be doubted. It simply shines out of dozens of documents, occasional writings, and extempore statements. I think that his weak point is elsewhere.
The current Pope is simply obsessed by ecumenism. Probably the most spectacular, and to my mind unfortunate, instance of this obsession, is the annual prayer encounter at Assisi, where clerics and leaders from any body that can be defined as a religion are invited to be "together to pray". There you may see shamans in traditional dress sharing space with orange-robed Buddhist monks and naked Shaiva ascetics. The whole exhibition is, to me, sadly reminiscent of an attempt to invent a worldwide Trades Union of religious personnel, and the fact that the Church bodies involved have to specify that all these gentlemen and ladies are not there "to pray together" but "together to pray" does not reassure me in the least. Above all, the whole thing is philosophically fallacious; a strange thing from a Pope whose training is in philosophy. For it starts from the assumption that there is a sphere of activity called "religion", all whose members have something in common, as opposed to something which is not "religion". The usual dichotomy, of course, is "religion" and "science" or "religion" and "reason" (more often in the form "faith" and "reason").
This entry is already long enough, and I have no place to say why I think that this is an unsustainable dichotomy and a mere "sell"; I will just sum up my views. Religion is nothing but another word for a philosophy of existence, of ultimate things; and if certain religions enjoin certain rituals or activities, it is because they hold that those particular rituals or activities are necessary to the way they understand existence. In other words, religion is a philosophy of existence. And if you accept that definition, then it follows that what is called "science" or "reason", and is in fact agnosticism or atheism, is itself a religion. Now to describe everything else as a religion, and this particular philosophy of existence as irreligious, is simply a sell: a way to imply, without actually having to argue it, that its own view of the universe is supported by reason and science, and that competing views are not. In other words, it is one religion affirming that it is right and other religions are wrong; just like every other religion does.
But getting away from the scandal of Assisi, I think that the obsession with ecumenism is at the back of every dubious or downright damaging decision of this Pope. In the case of the American Church, there may be in addition the old Roman sense that the American Church is too huge and too distant to usefully discipline. But in general, all the dubious choices of this pontificate have been made in the name of trying to make Protestants, Orthodox, and other separate Churches, feel that they can have a place in the Roman communion. Hence dozens of ill-considered or insufficient approaches; hence the constant pandering to modernism and the dubious nominations. It is typical of the worst of the current pontificate that a man like Kasper should be in charge, exactly, of the College for the Unity of Christians.
The results are not good. The Pope ends up raising hopes that are impossible for him to fulfil, and that, given his own perfectly orthodox faith, he would not think of fulfilling. Soon there is a general perception that the Church is giving way on this or that controversial area; and then a Vatican document has to be published to restate the appropriate Church teaching. Then the people whose unreasonable expectations had been raised by a too forward Papal policy in one field or another suddenly have their hopes dashed; and, unreasonably but very humanly, they start calling the very Pope who had raised those hopes a repressive tyrant. Hence, at the end, the widespread impression among non-Catholics, that this Pope is particularly repressive and conservative.
One final consideration. The sense of anger and disappointment from non-Catholic quarters, the mistaken idea that this Pope is particularly repressive, conservative, reactionary; an impression that the list alone of his nominations should have been enough to dispel. It may well be that a genuinely more repressive and reactionary Pope would have drawn less anger and less disappointment.
The truth is that this Pope stands for compromise all the way. He has, indeed, made vigorous statements of traditional Catholic doctrine; and he has, in his own person, used all the armoury of modern media to deliver a fundamentally orthodox vision of the Pope, and, by extension, of the Church. But he has never taken one step in one direction without taking an at least as large one in the opposite. He has humiliated the Church in many ways, underwriting documents of historical reassessment which the media have taken for apologies - even where they weren't - and suffering insulting rebukes from that unloveable man, Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow, in his hugely unrewarded quest to be liked among the Orthodox.
His policy on ecclesiastical appointments has been typical. The universal and utterly wrong impression is that the Pope is always looking to nominate conservative extremists, good little Ultramontane soldiers who will ignore the needs of their local communities in order to push an obscurantist Roman line. The truth is pretty nearly the opposite. At the very least, it might be said that he never nominated a conservative without nominating an out-and-out liberal at the same time. In a country such as Scotland, withe two archbishoprics only, this policy is almost comically clear: the Archbishop of Edinburgh, Keith O'Brien, an aggressive liberal, could almost be said to glower across the Lowlands at the Archbishop of Glasgow, the rockbound conservative Mario Conti, the two archioceses staring at each other like the Two Towers of Tolkien's great legend. Both men have been nominated by the current Pope, within a year of each other.
The matter is even more obvious and hilarious (but for its serious long-term effects) at the highest reaches of the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger is generally taken to be the face of the current Pontificate, although in point of fact he had been "discovered" and promoted by Pope Paul VI. Among people who do not know enough about the Church, he is universally taken to be a monster of right-wing reaction, the kind of man who hankers for Francos and Pinochets. This is a vile and false representation, but it reflects a truth - that the Cardinal is the most powerful enemy of the "liberals" today. This is not only because of his powerful position at the head of the Holy Office, with its mandate to defend orthodox doctrine, but because he is highly intelligent, articulate, an excellent writer and theologian, knows more theology and philosophy than any of his opponents - and is long-lived, having just entered a vigorous seventy-eighth year. All this makes him a bad man to have against you. All well and good. But the Pope has also nominated two other German Cardinals, Lehmann of Cologne as Primate of Germany, and Kasper at the head of the Council for Christian Unity, who to all appearances are placed where they are purely to stymie Ratzinger.
Kasper who comes from the University of Tubingen - a notorious centre of opposition to Christianity and Catholicism down at least two centuries - has an ecclesiology that is different in no essential detail from that of the Church of England, and, oddly enough, is rather more authoritarian than Ratzinger's and the Pope's. His idea of the Church moves power away from the Vatican above and the laity below to the individual Bishop, made a nearly independent authority in his own diocese. Considering that the power of the Vatican has grown down the centuries exactly as a court of last resort against the otherwise unlimited power of the local bishop, this seems to me like a charter for the dissolution of the Church, and incidentally for the oppression of the laity. Kasper has other strange opinions, although not as strange as Lehmann's (or O'Brien's, or Martini's, or Flynn's, or Mahoney's, or McCormick); but he takes advantage of his high position to voice them more often. Just lately, for instance, he directly denied Church teaching by stating that, "in some circumstances," Communion could be given to non-Catholics. As for Lehmann, the less said, the better. Not so long ago, he had a public debate with the well-known schismatic theologian Hans Kueng, which was touted as "orthodoxy vs. dissent". Many Catholics quipped, since when has Hans Kueng stood for orthodoxy? For Lehmnann is notorious; indeed, the supposed debate turned into a kind of "liberal" love-in at the expense of traditional Catholic teaching. A rumour says that these exceedingly unlikely appointments were forced on the Pope by the Polish Church, forced in turn by the German (who pass a lot of funds to their poorer colleagues across the Oder) exactly in order to hold Ratzinger down; but, in the last analysis, nobody can compel the Pope. He appoints whom he chooses; and if such pressures existed, John Paul II chose to accept them where he could have rejected them. Let us remember that this is the man who appointed Mahoney to Los Angeles and Rimbert Weakland to Milwaukee.
Conspiracy theorists would know what to make of this. The Pope is a freemason or a closet Protestant or a Communist sympathizer, continuing in the evil tradition of John XXIII and Paul VI. That, of course, is nonsense. The personal orthodox faith of John Paul II cannot be doubted. It simply shines out of dozens of documents, occasional writings, and extempore statements. I think that his weak point is elsewhere.
The current Pope is simply obsessed by ecumenism. Probably the most spectacular, and to my mind unfortunate, instance of this obsession, is the annual prayer encounter at Assisi, where clerics and leaders from any body that can be defined as a religion are invited to be "together to pray". There you may see shamans in traditional dress sharing space with orange-robed Buddhist monks and naked Shaiva ascetics. The whole exhibition is, to me, sadly reminiscent of an attempt to invent a worldwide Trades Union of religious personnel, and the fact that the Church bodies involved have to specify that all these gentlemen and ladies are not there "to pray together" but "together to pray" does not reassure me in the least. Above all, the whole thing is philosophically fallacious; a strange thing from a Pope whose training is in philosophy. For it starts from the assumption that there is a sphere of activity called "religion", all whose members have something in common, as opposed to something which is not "religion". The usual dichotomy, of course, is "religion" and "science" or "religion" and "reason" (more often in the form "faith" and "reason").
This entry is already long enough, and I have no place to say why I think that this is an unsustainable dichotomy and a mere "sell"; I will just sum up my views. Religion is nothing but another word for a philosophy of existence, of ultimate things; and if certain religions enjoin certain rituals or activities, it is because they hold that those particular rituals or activities are necessary to the way they understand existence. In other words, religion is a philosophy of existence. And if you accept that definition, then it follows that what is called "science" or "reason", and is in fact agnosticism or atheism, is itself a religion. Now to describe everything else as a religion, and this particular philosophy of existence as irreligious, is simply a sell: a way to imply, without actually having to argue it, that its own view of the universe is supported by reason and science, and that competing views are not. In other words, it is one religion affirming that it is right and other religions are wrong; just like every other religion does.
But getting away from the scandal of Assisi, I think that the obsession with ecumenism is at the back of every dubious or downright damaging decision of this Pope. In the case of the American Church, there may be in addition the old Roman sense that the American Church is too huge and too distant to usefully discipline. But in general, all the dubious choices of this pontificate have been made in the name of trying to make Protestants, Orthodox, and other separate Churches, feel that they can have a place in the Roman communion. Hence dozens of ill-considered or insufficient approaches; hence the constant pandering to modernism and the dubious nominations. It is typical of the worst of the current pontificate that a man like Kasper should be in charge, exactly, of the College for the Unity of Christians.
The results are not good. The Pope ends up raising hopes that are impossible for him to fulfil, and that, given his own perfectly orthodox faith, he would not think of fulfilling. Soon there is a general perception that the Church is giving way on this or that controversial area; and then a Vatican document has to be published to restate the appropriate Church teaching. Then the people whose unreasonable expectations had been raised by a too forward Papal policy in one field or another suddenly have their hopes dashed; and, unreasonably but very humanly, they start calling the very Pope who had raised those hopes a repressive tyrant. Hence, at the end, the widespread impression among non-Catholics, that this Pope is particularly repressive and conservative.
One final consideration. The sense of anger and disappointment from non-Catholic quarters, the mistaken idea that this Pope is particularly repressive, conservative, reactionary; an impression that the list alone of his nominations should have been enough to dispel. It may well be that a genuinely more repressive and reactionary Pope would have drawn less anger and less disappointment.
