Some Points….at Where Peter Is
Deacon Douglas McManaman
An important objection was raised recently during a parish bible study, in the context of a discussion on the development of Church teaching and biblical interpretation. The idea was that in the face of disputes, uncertainties, and disagreements on the meaning of a particular scriptural text or Church teaching, or in the face of historical evidence that a common teaching of the Church has changed, etc., a person might well be tempted to just give it all up and dismiss the Church altogether and live life without her. This is an important point, and it is indeed a real temptation among certain kinds of people, particularly when they are challenged to grow in their understanding of the faith; for as we know, many people after Vatican II did just that, i.e., left the Church and began spending their Sundays on the golf course–all those changes were just too much for many of them.
I would like to reflect on that objection in light of some principles that might shed light on the problem. I think of my parents. They did a lot for me, a lot of good, and I have to be grateful for that. In fact, they did more good than I am fully cognizant of. However, as time went on in my life, I came to the realization that some things they believed and taught were not quite correct. There’s no getting around this for anyone. In some matters, my own mother came to that realization about herself and changed some of her views and attitudes later in life. Other things were left unchanged in her mind, but in my mind, she was mistaken about some of those things, i.e., fundamental moral matters. The overall orientation of her life, however, was on point, but it also took me years to see that her new outlook on many aspects of human life were right after all. In short, I finally came to see that although she was mistaken about some matters, she was right about other more important things that she was trying to get me to see when I was younger, but too much lacking in experience to see it at the time. But that does not change my relationship with her. It would be a serious mistake if I were to dismiss my parents and turn my back on them because I discovered they were mistaken about this or that–especially when my own life has been a series of errors, among other things.
The same is true for certain individuals who were a tremendous influence in my life. One in particular, a priest, was the reason I returned to the Church, and as a young man, I looked up to him and probably idealized him. But after a number of years, I began to see that certain theological opinions he held were not quite right, at least in my mind, and recent developments in Catholic teaching, I believe, corroborate that. But that does not change the fact that he was a major influence in my life and an important friend. For me to turn my back on him and dismiss him outright because I discovered that certain opinions he held on certain issues–which I embraced at the time as a result of a certain trust I had placed in him–turned out to be mistaken or not entirely true, would be completely unwarranted. I believe that there is something analogous here with respect to our relationship to the Church. Moreover, a similar idealization of the Church can and often does take root in certain people, which often boils down to an ecclesiological supernaturalism if you will.
The Perfection and Imperfection of the Church
The Church is Christ’s Mystical Body (1 Cor 12, 12-26). Christ is the head, while the Church is his body. The Church is also the Bride of Christ, and bride and groom are “one body” (Eph 5, 31-32). The soul of the Church is the Holy Spirit (St Augustine), and it is by virtue of this fact that the Church is truly “holy”, consecrated, sanctified, and thus capable of sanctifying. It is grace that sanctifies, and grace is the indwelling of the Trinity. And so, the Church is a means of grace, a means of holiness.
But the members of the Church, including clergy of all ranks, are human beings who suffer from the same moral and cognitive limitations that constrain humanity. We (you and I) are members of the Church insofar as we are united to her, and we are united to her through baptism, which imparts the grace of regeneration–we are a new creation (2 Cor 5, 17); we have become adopted sons/daughters of God, given the supernatural virtues as a sheer gift, as well as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we have been anointed priest, prophet and king in the course of the baptismal rite. However, the individual members of the pilgrim people of God have a more or less limited degree of holiness; for we are “on the way”. There are tendencies within us that are simply inconsistent with holiness; we are often imprudent, unjust, intemperate, and lacking courage. To that degree, we are unholy (Cf. Rom 7, 15-19). We are truly members of the Church insofar as we are in a state of grace, but we tarnish the face and figure of the Church to the degree that we are sinful. This includes all members of the pilgrim people of God, i.e., clergy and non-clergy alike.
We belong to this Church because we belong to Christ, but our insertion into Christ is rather imperfect. The Church is the sacrament of Christ, the visible sign of Christ that contains what it signifies (Christ), but the sinfulness of her members, like an eclipse, will block his light and warmth, leaving behind a degree of darkness and cold in the world. Hence, our sins cause harm, and they have far reaching social repercussions. That is why many people in the world find the notion of the “holiness of the Church” to be rather counterintuitive; for if we look in the direction of the Church’s humanness, we clearly see her imperfection, and we really can say that the Church has defects, because you and I really do belong to the Church and you and I really are defective.
It is a great gift and a sign of Christ’s humility that we are made a part of his body, which is holy, which has a perfect holiness insofar as the source of that holiness is perfect, namely, the Holy Spirit. And yet, it should not be overlooked that the Church is also imperfect insofar as we belong to her. We are “being perfected”, but are not yet perfect, and we are being perfected only because Christ, the principle of that perfection, is himself perfect, and the Church as his Mystical Body has the power to move us towards that eschatological perfection: “Jesus offered one sacrifice for sins and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are placed beneath his feet. By one offering he has forever perfected those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:12-14). If the Church were merely human, like any other institution that is basically good, then it would not be the case that we are “being perfected”–except in a very qualified way, for no other institution can lead us to holiness. But the Church can lead us to holiness because she is holy, for she is united to Christ–if she were not, there would be no Church. United to Christ, she is united to the Holy Spirit, who ensouls her. It is on this side alone that we come up against the imperfection of the Church.
Statements of Faith, Common Doctrine, and Theological Opinion
But how does all this bear upon Church teaching? Is it possible for the Church to be mistaken on a particular teaching as our parents, for example, have been mistaken in certain matters? Given that most people employ the phrase “Church teaching” without precision, to encompass the entire network of Catholic teaching, I am going to argue yes, but precision and distinction are required in order to understand this realistically. There is a distinction between 1) statements of faith and what pertains to the faith; 2) common doctrine; and 3) theological opinion. Determining which teachings belong to which category can be a difficult undertaking and a person can certainly be mistaken in this, making matters all the more confusing, but let it be said at the outset that common doctrine and theological opinion are not irreversible, that is, they can and have indeed changed over the centuries. What pertains to the faith of the Church, however, is irreversible, although ever open to increasingly deeper intellectual understanding and newer formulation, to the point at which we may even come away with the realization that we barely understood this teaching at all, or certainly not as we might have thought we did. Some, however, mistakenly argue that because statements of faith and what pertains to the faith are irreversible, Church teaching as a whole is irreversible. But this merely narrows the meaning of “Church teaching” to a very limited aspect of the Church’s overall doctrinal product.
Piet Fransen S. J. writes [all emphases mine]:
Christ has entrusted his revelation and his salvation to his Church, and he has promised that he himself and his spirit would never forsake this Church. This promise does not, however, mean that the Church, as a community of actual and historical people, cannot be affected by the particular sociological, cultural and philosophical structures and tendencies of any particular age. … And because this Holy Church of God is also a Church of sinners, it is not impossible that these various influences, acting through particular historical forms and customs, should have obscured Christ’s own essential idea of the Church and brought it into danger. The Church has therefore the obligation, in every period of its history, of reflecting again on Christ’s original message, and of purifying itself from the various accretions that may have been accepted in a previous generation.” [1]
Just as a human person who is baptized and in a state of grace but at the same time cognitively limited, as we all are, will also grow throughout his or her life, moving past theologically immature notions –“When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things” (1 Cor 13, 11), – so too does the Church, founded by Christ and given the charism of infallibility, grow throughout her historical existence, putting aside inadequate formulations for the sake of those that more accurately express who and what She is and believes. On the level of common doctrine, the Church has been wrong about many things. For example, consider the question of salvation for infants who die without baptism. In section 34 of the International Theological Commission’s The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, we read:
In the Church’s tradition, the affirmation that children who died unbaptised are deprived of the beatific vision has for a long time been “common doctrine”. This common doctrine followed upon a certain way of reconciling the received principles of revelation, but it did not possess the certitude of a statement of faith, or the same certitude as other affirmations whose rejection would entail the denial of a divinely revealed dogma or of a teaching proclaimed by a definitive act of the magisterium. [2]
Section 33 of this same document offers the following more precise and interesting points on development:
The history of theology and of magisterial teaching show in particular a development concerning the manner of understanding the universal saving will of God. The theological tradition of the past (antiquity, the Middle Ages, the beginning of modern times), in particular the Augustinian tradition, often presents what by comparison with modern theological developments would seem to be a “restrictive” conception of the universality of God’s saving will. In theological research, the perception of the divine will to save as “quantitatively” universal is relatively recent. At the level of the magisterium, this larger perception was progressively affirmed. Without trying to date it exactly, one can observe that it appeared very clearly in the 19th century, especially in the teaching of Pius IX on the possible salvation of those who, without fault on their part, were unaware of the Catholic faith: those who “lead a virtuous and just life, can, with the aid of divine light and grace, attain eternal life; for God, who understands perfectly, scrutinizes and knows the minds, souls, thoughts and habits of all, in his very great goodness and patience, will not permit anyone who is not guilty of a voluntary fault to be punished with eternal torments”. This integration and maturation in Catholic doctrine meanwhile gave rise to a renewed reflection on the possible ways of salvation for unbaptised infants. [3]
Another example of common doctrine and theological opinion is the issue of owning slaves. Actions speak louder than words, and the Church tolerated chattel slavery for centuries. It was St. Augustine’s theological opinion that Jesus Christ did not make men free from being slaves [4], and in 1639 Pope Urban VIII purchased slaves for himself from the Knights of Malta. It was Pope Leo XIII who finally got on board with the abolitionists. Christopher Kellerman, S.J., writes:
And yet it was once widely known, and still is among historians of slavery today, that the Catholic Church once embraced slavery in theory and in practice, repeatedly authorized the trade in enslaved Africans, and allowed its priests, religious and laity to keep people as enslaved chattel. The Jesuits, for example, by the historian Andrew Dial’s count, owned over 20,000 enslaved people circa 1760. The Jesuits and other slaveholding bishops, priests and religious were not disciplined for their slaveholding because they were not breaking church teaching. Slaveholding was allowed by the Catholic Church. [5]
Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, 8, offers some very important points regarding the historical process by which Church teaching develops:
This tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.
The expression employed here, namely “growth in understanding”, often implies that what we previously understood to be the case is no longer so. This we designate as ‘truth status revision’. In light of new information, p changes from T to F, or F to T. This is typically preceded by ‘reopening’: here new information leads us to become unsure of the truth-status of a proposition we had previously classed as true or false, thus, the truth status of a proposition at issue is reopened (p changes from T or F to I). [6]
The Church is a visible entity, a body, a living organism that moves through history, one that grows and develops, and it is within a particular and changing historical context that the Church always speaks, addressing the faithful in very specific situations and employing propositions that communicate what it is she asserts for the sake of the faithful and the issues that arise from within those situations. Outside of that context, it is easy to lose the precise meaning of those assertions. In other words, conciliar statements as well as encyclicals have a very limited range of meaning. A specific teaching expressed in propositions may say one thing, but in doing so the Church intends to assert something whose meaning is correctly apprehended within a very narrow historical range. In this light, we can say that the official teachers of the Church do not always grasp the scope of an idea expressed in a proposition, at a given moment in history. As an example, consider some of the statements condemned in the Syllabus of Errors in 1864; for it is indeed true, and not false as the Syllabus literally says, that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (SE, 77), and it is true, not false, that “it has been wisely decided by the law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship” (SE, 78). Religious freedom and freedom of conscience are ideas that have a much larger scope than what Pope Pius IX understood and needed in order to make certain assertions at the time. Moreover, it is true indeed, not false, that the Roman Pontiff ought to reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization (SE, 80). Indeed, some aspects of liberal thought and modern civilization are, contrary to appearances, anti-progressive and uncivilized, but all of us must “come to terms” with modern civilization–the question here is what does it mean to “come to terms with” and be “reconciled to”? The Church cannot be “reconciled to” modern civilization in terms of capitulating to the cultural mores of the times, or relinquishing her mission to proclaim Christ and call the world to ongoing religious and moral conversion. The context in which these statements were condemned as errors is not the context of today, and so what was condemned was an understanding of terms very different from and much more circumscribed than what we currently understand by these terms.
Some will argue that the change in the Church’s teaching on usury was not a revision, but an example of a simple development. I am convinced that it is an instance of truth status revision, but a development at the same time.[7] Belgian canonist Zeger Bernhard van Espen defined usury as “…lucrum ex mutuo exactum aut speratum” [the actual or expected profit from a loan].[8] Usury, I would argue, is an example of ‘common doctrine’. Espenius argues that usury is forbidden by natural and divine law insofar as theft is prohibited (the unlawful taking of another’s goods). It was eventually discovered, however, that charging interest on a loan was a way to establish equitable profit. The early Church did not see this because there was no concept of time preference with respect to money, and so this is a matter of ‘issue acquisition’: new concepts needed to formulate a contention that could not previously be entertained at all are developed (p changes from U to T or F or I).[9] Specifically, ‘time preference’ refers to the basic principle that human beings typically prefer the enjoyment of a good, such as money, in the present to the enjoyment of that same good in the future. The value one places on one’s own money today is very different than the value one places on it ten years from now, and so charging interest on a loan is a way of maintaining equitable value. The simple fact of the matter is that the statement “charging interest on a loan is morally wrong or sinful” is not necessarily true. It may very well be sinful, but it may not be.
What is particularly interesting is that today, usury is still condemned by the Church; for what constitutes usury in the eyes of the Church is something far more sinister than the simple practice of charging interest on a loan, such as odious debts, irresponsible lending, avaricious dealings that in the end lead to loss of assets, hunger and death: “Although the quest for equitable profit is acceptable in economic and financial activity, recourse to usury is to be morally condemned: ‘Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them.’”[10]
An example of another common teaching that has changed is the refusal of Catholic burials for persons who took their own lives. With more data on the nature of clinical depression and the degree of responsibility of those who suffer from it, it became rather obvious that the common practice was unwarranted.
It should also be pointed out that “common doctrine” as it is used here is not the same thing as the “teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium”. The two are distinct; for in section 892 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read: “Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a “definitive manner,” they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals.” The past teaching on owning slaves or children in limbo or the nature of money did not and do not lead to a better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. Hence, fervent Catholics should really give up the intellectual gymnastics required to defend them.[11]
Concluding Thoughts
As an administrative body, the Church is no more competent than any other institution, at least not necessarily. In fact, she is very often less competent than most, because she is slow to progress; other corporations have incentives that move them to quickly seek ways to improve business, so to speak, incentives often lacking in some churches and dioceses. The charism of infallibility does not extend to administrative competence, but unfortunately that is often what many people encounter first, namely, the visible product of her administrative decisions, and this can be and has been a source of scandal and great suffering for many people—i.e., administrative decisions regarding the protection of sexually abusive priests, cooperation with abusive governments in the forced removal of indigenous children from their families in order to be placed in residential schools that showed zero reverence for their cultural heritage, encouraging the usurpation of indigenous lands (Alexander VI), or Johann Tetzel and the corruptions that spawned the Reformation, or bishops, blinded by partiality and who support clergy friends who prove to be lazy, condescending opportunists, ultimately uncommitted to their parishioners and who do little more than spend parish funds, etc. There seems to be no end to the variety of ways the administrative Church causes the faithful to suffer.[12]
To see the Church in her holiness, we need the eyes of faith; for without the light of faith, we behold only the humanness of the Church, her imperfections and sins. We need to see both. If we refuse to behold her sinfulness, we begin to live in “unreality”, and many people in the past and present have chosen to live in “unreality”-that was one of the many factors that contributed to the clerical sex abuse scandals; people simply refused to see imperfection and depravity where there was imperfection and depravity, for there was an idealization of the clergy, rooted in a bad theology which gave rise to the notion that the ordained clergy are “ontologically superior” to the laity, a “metaphysical clericalism” that unfortunately has not entirely disappeared.[13] So, when we speak of the holiness and perfection of the Church, we are not in any way referring to the holiness and perfection of the clergy. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh writes:
We know that the Church, for those who look at it from the outside, is a body of people possessed of a common faith, proclaiming the same doctrine, celebrating the same mysteries in churches like the ancient churches—bodies with bishops and clergy within a long line of apostolic succession. But this is what any outsider can see of it. We need that kind of description for people to be able to locate the Church in space, in time, in the same way we could describe the outside of a cathedral, a church, or any other place for people to be able to recognize it. But unless they enter into this place, whether it be a church or a museum, they will not ever understand what it is about. And if we enter the Church, what we discover is that the Church is a strange, living organism, simultaneously and equally human and divine. The fullness of God abides in it. And also, all that is human is in it—what is fulfilled and what is in the making, what is tragic and what is already shining with glory. [14]
The hierarchy naturally tends to conserve and thus to “conservatism” (Congar), for the sake of maintaining order and unity, but the Church ultimately cannot impede development, as Dei Verbum makes clear. But there is always a temptation, rooted in a desire for stability, security, and certainty, to treat Church teaching as though it were a finished product. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit, which he will send, will lead the Church to the complete truth: “the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (16, 13). This is a leading, a moving forward; the Church grows in her self-understanding in a way that is perfectly congruent with the epistemic structural pattern of human knowing, beginning with sense perception, and thus limited by time and place and the specific questions we seek to resolve. We progress as a result of new and specific problems to solve, dialogue, new insight, error seen in retrospect, and adjustment, etc. That is why the history of science is a graveyard of discarded theories and hypotheses–the price we pay for its benefits. We see something similar in the Church, i.e., clear evidence that the Church is being guided by the Holy Spirit, but we also see that She is being “led to the complete truth”, and not that She has “arrived at the complete truth”.
There are teachings we can be quite certain of, such as irreversible statements of faith, i.e., the Church’s Christological and trinitarian formulations, fundamental moral principles, etc. The Church is not going to come out one day to declare: “Ooops! We’re sorry, but we got the Trinity wrong; Sabellius was right after all, there is no real Trinity of Persons, just three modes”, nor is the Church going to come out and declare that abortion is morally okay after all, or that the Eucharist is really nothing more than a symbol, not his actual body and blood, soul and divinity, as was always taught. The Church as a whole has the charism, exercised by the magisterium, to lead the faithful in matters that bear upon their salvation. However, the theological and moral implications of these starting points, namely articles of faith, are only gradually unpacked as new circumstances and new questions arise and make possible a better and more profound understanding of the deposit of faith entrusted to the Church. For there is no denying that it took centuries for the Church to see that specific behaviors, such as owning slaves or executing criminals, are inconsistent with the gospel and contrary to the dignity of the human person. In other words, it took centuries to understand the implications of the very principles the Church embraces in embracing Christ, at least with respect to these and other issues. It is indeed embarrassing that the Church took so long, but one benefit that should come out of this is that Catholics should be wary of tribal Catholicism and the temptation to speak with a rhetoric of certainty and thus come across as having all the answers, as if the Roman Church need not enter into dialogue with the sister Churches of East and West.[15] Faith brings us right into the heart of mystery, and mystery is intelligible but dark, and faith in the Church that Christ established remains a dark habit (John of the Cross); it is not the same as ecclesial idealization, which is akin to the parental idealization of childhood. [16]
Notes
1. Intelligent Theology, Vol 1: London, DLT, 1967. pp. 40-41.
2. International Theological Commission: The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, 34. 2007. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
3. Ibid., 33.
4. Daniel J. Camacho writes: “After Augustine returns to North Africa and takes up positions of Christian leadership, he continues to speak about slavery with increasing degrees of authority. In his view, enslaved Christians shouldn’t agitate for actual freedom. “That is as it should be,” Augustine says. “[Christ] has not made slaves free, but turned bad slaves into good slaves.” Augustine’s sermons stress the importance of mercy. But in response to the concern that this could be misconstrued as a lack of discipline, he preaches: “That’s not what I’m saying…and if you see your slave living badly, what other punishment will you curb him with, if not the lash? Use it: do. God allows it. In fact he is angered if you don’t. But do it in a loving rather than vindictive spirit.” Saint Augustine’s Slave Play
https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/saint-augustines-slave-play/#:~:text=%E2%80%9C%5BChrist%5D%20has%20not%20made,stress%20the%20importance%20of%20mercy. See also Margaret Mary. “Slavery in the Writings of St. Augustine.” The Classical Journal 49, no. 8 (1954): 363–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292914.
5. Christopher J. Kellerman S. J., “Slavery and the Catholic Church: It’s time to correct the historical record”. Feb 15, 2023. America. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/02/15/catholic-church-slavery-244703?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADlfgTctyNESzXFV_N-uIZ5L8wS6w&gclid=Cj0KCQjwh7K1BhCZARIsAKOrVqHq4fuicL974W4efrHWFV1xmxkg5uRuDxiZWRurSxIFPLjB21M51CkaAmCVEALw_wcB
6. See Nicholas Rescher. Empirical Inquiry. London: The Athlone Press, 1982, pp. 90-91.
7. For an honest and thorough discussion of this question, see The Church and the Market, by Thomas Woods Jr. pp. 109-122.
8. Orthodox Church Fathers: “Excursus on Usury”. https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/npnf214/npnf2121.html#:~:text=The%20famous%20canonist%20Van%20Espen,divine%2C%20and%20by%20human%20law. (Aug 16, 2024).
9. Op.cit., Rescher.
10. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, sec. 341.
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#Gods%20gratuitous%20presence
11. See Lumen gentium, 25.
12. There are three specific ways that we can look at the humanness of the Church. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh writes: “…the Church is also human. And in many ways, not simply in one way, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ we have a vision of Man: man as he is called to be, as he truly is, a human being at one with God. Less than this, man is not a human being in the full sense of the word, according to the mind of the Scriptures. Christ is the only true man because he is the only perfect man. And perfect means fulfilled, brought to perfection. But in the Church there is also another dimension of humanity: us—imperfect, in the making. But we are imperfect in two different ways: we may be imperfect while we strive God-wards, or we may be imperfect when we turn away from God. It is not a matter of success; it is a matter of direction. Saint Ephraim of Syria says that the Church is not a body of saints, it is a crowd of repentant sinners. And by repentant we do not mean wailing sinners, but people who have turned God-wards and move God-wards, who may fall but will stand. But there is also another dimension in our humanity, which is neither the tragic dimension of sin, repentance, and struggle, nor the glorious dimension of the saints. There is a dimension that is mean, that is small, that in a way is a betrayal and a renunciation—the fig tree covered with leaves and barren”. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Churchianity vs Christianity. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Kindle Edition, pp. 13-14.
13 “In the first chapters of the Draft the traditional picture of the Church predominates. You know the pyramid: the pope, the bishops, the priests, who preside and, when they receive the powers, who teach, sanctify, and govern; then, at the bottom, the Christian people who instead receive and somehow seem to occupy second place in the Church. We should note that hierarchical power is only something transitory. It belongs to our status on the way. In the next life, in the final state, it will no longer have a purpose, because the elect will have reached perfection, perfect unity in Christ. What remains is the People of God; what passes is the ministry of the hierarchy. In the People of God we are all joined to others and have the same basic rights and duties. We all share in the royal priesthood of the People of God. The pope is one of the faithful; bishops, priests, lay people, religious: we are all the faithful. We go to the same sacraments; we all need the forgiveness of sins, the eucharistic bread, and the Word of God; we are all heading towards the same homeland, by God’s mercy and by the power of the Holy Spirit. But as long as the People of God is on the way, Christ brings it to perfection by means of the sacred ministry of the hierarchy. All power in the Church is for ministering, for serving: a ministry of the Word, a ministry of grace, a ministry of governance. We did not come to be served but to serve. We must be careful lest in speaking about the Church we fall into a kind of hierarchism, clericalism, episcopolatry, or papolatry. What is most important is the People of God; to this People of God, to this Bride of the Word, to this living Temple of the Holy Spirit, the hierarchy must supply its humble services so that it may grow and reach perfect manhood, the fullness of Christ. Of this growing life the hierarchical Church is the good mother: Mother Church.” Bishop Emile Josef De Smedt’s Intervention at Vatican II.
14. Op.cit., Anthony.
15. Piet Fransen writes: “We are also profoundly conscious of the precariousness of human truth. This is all the more so with “divine truth,” since any human formulation of it necessarily falls short of the richness and fullness of the divine reality. If it is permissible to talk of infallibility in relation to man, it must first be a qualification of an activity, and not of a proposition, and that under the guidance of the infallible God. Infallibility is a property of a free person; never of a sentence, since any sentence as such, without its context, can be understood and read in many different ways. Whenever we are allowed a participatory form of infallibility, then this infallibility does not lie so much in the formulation itself but in the concrete intention, the affirmative direction, the so-called ‘significance’ of this particular formulation” (See “Unity and Confessional Statements. Historical and Theological Inquiry of R. C. Traditional Conceptions,” in Hermeneutics of the Councils and Other Studies. Collected by H.E. Mertens and F. De Graeve. Leuven University Press, 1985. P. 279-280).
16. “Faith does not mean that we cease from asking questions; it means that we ask and keep on asking until the answer comes; that we seek and keep on seeking until the truth is found; that we knock and keep on knocking until the door is opened and we enter into the palace of God’s truth. It becomes more and more important as years pass by and men’s minds grow that we should prove all things, while holding fast to that which is true. Christ calls us to that courage which bids us give up the snug little homes which sloth and prejudice have built for our minds, our pet infallibilities, in which we could rest and cease to think wrapt in peaceful peace . . . We are afraid—of course we are afraid. “If that is not true,” we say, “where am I? How can I be sure of anything? If the Bible is not literally true, word for word, if the picture of God which my forefathers had is a false picture, where am I? What is there settled? Where can I live? There is nothing before me but the open sea where I must journey helpless and exposed to every wind that blows.” And that is true! The world is out on the open sea exposed to every wind. And I am out on the open sea with it, but I do not care because there is One who walks beside me and before me and behind me, and God, who caused the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into my heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are called upon, the Church is called upon, to go out onto the open sea with Christ, leaving behind the snug homes of patent infallibilities which the guns have battered into dust, and follow Him until we find the truth. We are not in complete darkness. We are not without a Guide. Theology changes, but religion remains. To fold your hands and say, “God knows best,” to take refuge in unreal platitudes, is to cower away from the light that God, through the prayers of the saints, through the courage of the scientists, through the cunning of inventors, and through the tireless patience of the thinkers, has been giving down the ages. The task of the Church and of her children, which is peculiarly her task and peculiarly theirs, is to gather up from every corner of the world all the light that can be found, and set it blazing on this great problem of evil, in order to find the best partial solution for the children of our day, and the one which will provide the surest foundation for the complete solution which the passage of the ages, under God, will bring to light. We must seek for light in every corner of God’s universe, never forgetting it is God’s universe, and that in it we can find revelation of Himself. We must go down to life’s dirtiest and dingiest depths, and up to its fairest and most fearful heights; we must face all the facts—the facts that make us shudder and the facts that make us laugh, the beauty that makes us gasp with wonder and the ugliness that makes us shrink in horror, the good that makes us want to worship and the evil that makes us bow our heads in shame; we must look at them all, face them all, asking always, “What is God like”—the God who is Creator and Ruler of a universe like this? We must not do what we have done, invent a God and then make life to fit Him, blinding our eyes to what does not suit our purpose; creating an absolute by the negative process of subtracting all human limitations from the human being, and choosing what we want to consider limitations, and what we do not. An imaginary God may be very beautiful, but He will not stand the tears and terror, and the fires that are not quenched. We must have Truth.” Geoffrey A. Studdert Kennedy. After War, Is Faith Possible?: The Life and Message of Geoffrey “Woodbine Willie” Studdert Kennedy . Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page by Deacon Douglas McManaman 