In two days, we will be leaving for California. There are lots of things to be done, but I can't work long without exhaustion and pain (hopefully mostly from being sedentary all winter, and not to do simply with aging!). So in between I may be writing on here more frequently, if only so I won't turn to solving my Rubik's Cube for the ten thousandth time -- or the 10,100th time.
While weed whacking outside, I was thinking and trying to pray about the state of the Church today, and what a regular, not-academic Catholic can say about things that can be very complicated.
With prudential decisions, I don't think I can have much to say except from the personal perspective of how they impact me and other peeps -- People in Pews, as they say. Too much goes into the process and I am not the one in charge. And I don't know how God plans to use something that may have imperfections in conceeption or implementation.
I thought the African bishops did a good job with this in regard to Fiducia Supplicans -- they made their opinion known precisely as African bishops, not as Guardians of the Galactic Orthodoxy. They said mainly that for their people, blessing people in illegitimate relationships would be very confusing, and their job description does not include confusing people unnecessarily. (This is a paraphrase).
Being a Catholic nowadays, one of course may be called upon to give an opinion of some Church protocol or statement. Whereas in the past, one only had to defend the timeless Tradition and the venerable traditions, now one may be asked about something that actually seems to contradict former doctrine and discipline. You are inevitably forced to (1) defend it (2) oppose it -- both inevitably causing some scandal with the apparent discrepancy between past and present -- and (3) refrain from giving an opinion altogether -- basically, just keep clinging to that tiger's tail.
There is a 4th way, which is simillar to what CS Lewis uses to deal with particular cases, which he did very well in several books of theology and in his fiction, and also in his letters. This is to go backwards to the principles of the thing, while not making it into an abstract "nothing burger" as Larry Chapp calls it. Then show how they apply.
At botttom, though theology almost seems like a cousin or foster mother to philosophy and like philosophy can get very refined and abstruse, at bottom, in its fundaments, it is also something a very beginner or unlearned truth-seeker can understand in its most essential parts.
This seems like the best path forward for me. Particularly, as a Benedictine, the desire for God is the essential and other learning is subordinate or contributory to that.
Since I was looking up synodality today (see Florilegium) I'll use that as an example. Many, many talking -typers have an opinion on synodality. Either they think it is wonderful, or they think it's a disaster.
The first thing to do would seem to be to define synodality as those who are spearheading it would have it defined. Pope Francis is the key promoter of synodality, which he has called "constitutive" of the Church.
Constitutive seems to have two main meanings. One just means constructive or organizational, one means essential to the thing. If Pope Francis is using the first meaning, he is just saying what he wants to have happen. In other words, he is recommending and trying to enact synodality. That would seem almost like expressing a resolution -- if I said that a garden is constitutive of our property in Oklahoma, meaning I had planted one and intended to work on it and carry it through, I would be expressing a hope rather than a past or current full reality.
If he is using the second meaning, that can only mean that synodality has always been essential to the Church. That means that it was born with Pentecost (if not before, but certainly then). That means that synodality in its essential features would be recognizable through history.
This meaning seems more likely, and is the tack that most commenters have taken. Thus, John O'Malley wrote that synodality has been with us since the earliest times, and the critics try to point out that the modern manifestation of synodality has several unprecedented and possibly dangerous features.
Reading through Pope Francis's words, I wonder if he actually is employing both meanings. He refers to his predecessors post-Vatican II -- specifically Paul VI's desire to have regular episcopal synods, and John Paul II's attempts to implement this.
This is the organizational side, and is indeed more or less a ressourcement concept, insofar as we are talking about an apostolic college or episcopal community that discusses things regionally or even more widely.
The other thread he brings in is that of service to the faithful. This concept in itself is also antique. The leaders serve those who they lead. I think this is the element I would want to think through a little more in its implications. It's the part that people either get giddy about or freaked out about.
The other part that can and has been criticized by laypersons is the implementation, the logistics. It seems fair to question how effectively the program does what it purportedly intends to do. But I know very little about logistics beyond those in my own household.
A bigger question that seems to come up whenever a seeming novelty is propsed for assent or practice is the one I mentioned before. It is rather hard to put into words. All of us nowadays are very accustomed to change and "improvement" in every practical area of our lives. Even conventional wisdom seems to be constantly updated, like new operating systems or new smartphones, new forms of social media, etc.
I can remember the days when I appreciated new tech because I thought it just made it easier to access and rest on the essential. Today I have trouble even recapturing that serenity. I don't know if it's because I'm older, or because I've become more aware of Marshall McLuhan's "media is the message" corollary, or a combination of both. I still hold that considered in itself, technology is neutral, and media is just that -- a medium, a vehicle of conveyance. I notice more now something that is hard to put into words -- because words are vehicles of conveyance too -- that we are embodied, so especially the more malleable of us will be shaped by new things in ways we can't predict.
I do think human nature, especially through deification, has a constancy that underlies all the change. I am basically hopeful, but right now, if asked to give my opinion on synodality, and Fiducia Supplicans, and most of what has happened in this papacy, I would probably encourage the Church to sit back a bit and contemplate rather than pushing at full steam to reinvent everything. However, I am not the one to judge, and I'm very happy about that!
No comments:
Post a Comment