“Three myths”?
March 2, 2012, 4:08 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
On another thread, Bob Nunz, while declaring his disagreement with it, refers us to John Allen’s column on three myths about Catholicism. If contributions to that other thread are any indication, Bob will not be alone in his dissent.
John Allen is a treasure. Wonderful little article. Thanks for the link.
John, with what do you – and others – disagree?
Some of us don’t think John Allen is a treasure but a sokesmenm for the party line that gives him access to high ecclesial sources.
I seem to recall him being described as a courtuer elsewhere.
What the diadagreements are should be clear if you read the other thread, David.
Purple Ecclesiology – think Rocco Palmo and Whispers in the Loggia.
That first section on Purple Ecclesiology could be revised and the language of Summorum Pontificum, Extraordinary Form, TLM, high and low mass, cappa magnas, latin only, Benedictince Form of altar decorations, chant, and reform of the reform could be inserted and Allen’s point would not change one iota.
In fact, thought of Allen’s myths along with the earlier post by Fr. Komonchak on the 50th anniversary of VII and folks memories, etc. – could they be positive; what do they remember or what did they learn from their experience of VII – many were unable to respond except within clericalism negativity and purple ecclesilogy. The whole VII point of the church is the laity was lost.
Starting to see the same trend response here??
Sorry – fat fingers…..the whole VII point of the church is that the laity is the church.
Bob Nunz:
I did you the favor of making your reference to John Allen’s column a separate thread, worthy of some discussion. It does not bode well that your first comment is a barely veiled attack on Allen himself (courtier?). This is not the way to carry on a conversation. How would you like it if people dismissed you with a similar attack, not on your arguments, but on your character as displayed in a typical comment from you? David Smith’s question is perfectly legitimate: With what do you disagree, and why?
Bill de Haas: Vatican II did not say that the laity is the Church, which would imply that the clergy and religious are not the Church. The Church as the People of God is the whole bunch of us.
Only a tiny bit of the whole bunch is necessary. Without bishops, there is no Church. Without laymen (and, obviously, laywomen) the Church would still exist.
Things were different, of course, in the VERY earliest days of Christianity, when women and men presided over sacred meals in their own houses, but how quickly ordained men stifled the women, and how thoroughly those women have been erased from history.
(In the old lectionary, discarded last year, there were even verses skipped from epistles to make sure women Paul included in his greetings would not be mentioned.)
Without bishops, there can be no priests.
Without priests, there can be no Eucharist.
Without Eucharist, there is no Church.
Ergo:
1. Purple ecclesiology
“Purple ecclesiology” refers to the notion that the lead actors in the Catholic drama are the clergy, and in fact, the only activity that really counts as “Catholic” at all is that carried out by the church’s clerical caste, especially its bishops. You can always spot purple ecclesiology at work when you hear someone say “the church” when what they really mean is “the hierarchy.”
Other Christian churches and ecclesial bodies do the work of Christ, yet (maybe because of size and influence?) the Catholic Church is almost always associated with its hierarchs and their perks, privileges, pageantry, power. Contrary to Allen’s suggestion, I don’t think the laity are necessarily asking for more recognition. I think the laity are fed up with hierarchs who try to lord it over the people at a time when the laity often are just as educated and informed on issues (if not more educated and informed on issues) than the hierarchs. You’ll note my use of the word ‘hierarchs’ in referring to these paternalistic, arrogant, and (yes, too often) toxic guys in their purple attire. (Never mind the “princes of the church”: I have no use for them, either.)
2. A church in decline
“The dominant Catholic narrative of our time, in other words, is not decline but astronomic growth. (That’s not true everywhere, as there are significant losses in Europe, parts of North America and in some pockets of Latin America, but it is the global big picture.)”
When it comes to numbers worldwide, I can relate to numbers only in my own country. I am a resident of the USA, not of Europe, Africa, Asia, etc. According to Pew, one in ten Americans self-identifies as ex-Catholic; one in three persons raised Catholic has left the Church of Rome (albeit for various reasons); for each accession to the Church of Rome, there are four losses. According to Pew if I remember, the U.S. Catholic Church is retaining its numbers because of Hispanic/Latino immigration. On the other hand, we have news reports of increasing numbers of Hispanic/Latino Catholics leaving the Church of Rome because of its perceived legalism, rigidity, etc. Some of these people join other Christian bodies, and still others leave organized religion altogether. From a numbers standpoint, these trends would not seem to bode well for the U.S. church.
3. Christianity is the oppressor, not the oppressed
“In the early 21st century, we are witnessing the rise of a whole new generation of Christian martyrs.”
Moral outrage aside, are Catholics in Iraq and other hot spots really *martyrs* due to “hatred for the faith”? Might not other factors — social, political, economic — be at work to help account for the violence directed at Catholics and other Christians? Is John Allen employing a new meaning for the word ‘martyr’? It would appear he may be doing just that when he associates martyrdom with good folks performing “works of charity and justice their faith compels them to perform.”
When I read Mr. Allen’s piece, my PR detector lit up.
apropos “a whole new generation of Christian martyrs,” some may be interested in this recent statement of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria:
“We mourn the sacrilege at St Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, where, on Christmas Day, innocent Christian worshippers celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, and some passers-by, were killed in a bomb blast. We equally mourn the loss of innocent Nigerians—Muslims and Christians—who died as a result of terrorist attacks in Kano on January 20, 2012. We are sad that, as we speak, there continues to be reports of bomb blasts and gunshots in Maiduguri, Damaturu, Kaduna, Bauchi and Jos, to mention but these.”
Full text here: http://www.cbcn-ng.org/
Scroll to “Publications: Meeting of February 25th.”
Three myths that my non-Catholic friends believe about Catholics:
(1) Catholics believe word for word everything that’s in the bible, without thinking.
(2) Catholics have to do everything that the pope says, without thinking.
(3) Priests typically commit sexual abuse.
A typical question they ask me: “You’re an educated woman. How can you remain Catholic?”
Three myths that my nominally Catholic friends believe about Catholics:
(1) If you like Latin prayers, then you’re prejudiced against Jews.
(2) If you’ve made a promise of celibacy, then something is wrong with you.
(3) If you go to Mass every week, then you vote for the Republicans.
Three myths that some of my devout Catholic friends have about Catholics.
(1) Conservative bishops are trying to get progressive Catholics to leave Catholicism.
(2) Bishops have lots of money.
(3) Everyone in the Vatican is a gay-hating closeted gay.
Also regarding “a whole new generation of Christian martyrs,” I think there should be some way we could memorialize their sacrifices in an ongoing way. Those 36 Nigerians and people like them around the world should be remembered by the rest of us and we should all mourn their loss.
I’ve been to a couple of a bar mitzvahs where, during the ceremony, the Bar Mitzvah would announce that the bar mitzvah was also being held for a particular child- and they would give a name- who died in the Holocaust. I think this is very poignant.
I suggested to my daughter she consider the name “Celina” for her confirmation name next year, in memory of the young girl murdered with her mother and the six Jesuits in El Salvador.
First, thanks to Bob Nunz for his original comment and to Fr. Komonchak for using it to start this thread.
Whether I agree with his interpretations or not, I think John Allen is a terrific reporter. One of the occupational challenges for any reporter is how one’s “beat” and sources can, over time, become overly influential in one’s reporting. Again, just my view, but I think Allen handles that about as well as any long-time journalist.
One of Allen’s strengths is the amount of reporting he does. He interviews people. He reads documents. He works to understand the context in which he’s operating and reporting. All of that undergirds this recent column of his.
The Nigerians in our parish are vividly and painfully aware of, and affected by, the ongoing bloodshed and conflict in Jos and throughout the country. It’s factually accurate (so far as I know) that today, Christians are martyred in larger numbers than those of any other faith.
Joseph Jaglowicz’ (3/2, 11:56 pm) experience of the “Church in decline” is, I think, shared by many of us in the non-Hispanic, non-immigrant portions of the US Church. I take Allen’s point simply to be that our experience is not necessarily normative—that there are Latino parishes growing and thriving across the Southwest and in most major US cities, that seminaries and novitiates in the “global South” are bulging at the seams with new vocations (as was true in the US 100 years ago). One reason to read Allen is precisely because he reports and writes on parts of the Church that are outside my own experience.
Even with the point on “purple ecclesiology”—I think it’s generally underappreciated the extent to which something like the Church’s sexual abuse scandal is a story driven by the power of Catholic laypeople. Take the Archdiocese of Boston as one example. Bernard Law went from being the cardinal-archbishop of one of the most powerful sees in the US to a man exiled in disgrace in a matter of months.
One key factor was that hundreds of thousands of Catholics in the Boston archdiocese recognized that the “Cardinal’s Appeal” was a uniquely important source of operational funding for the archdiocese (Boston had no virtually no endowment, no system of “taxing” parish collections to fund central operations; the archdiocese’s operating budget depended almost entirely on this one annual collection), and stopped giving.
A “purple ecclesiology” framework will almost certainly miss the significance of that story. That’s not to say bishops, cardinals, etc. aren’t extremely powerful and important within the Catholic Church. It’s just to say that Allen makes a reasonable point—as he often does.
I tried to say John Allen covers lots of stuff in interviews that he has access to because he reports the way the policy makers want them framed.
So I read him too regularly.
But didn’t we somewheer eback hacve some discussion on how Catholic journalists are under more pressure to report things in a certai nway?
I think Mr. allen may report lots of things we lack knowledge of(an HT to NCR for that) bu this quality as a jornalist objectively reporting IMO leaves much to be desired.
Still disagree wit hhis three myths!
And why, Bob, do you disagree with the three “myths”?
Ann: There are degrees of communion with the Catholic Church. Else why speak of converts as entering into “full” communion with the Church. In several places the texts of Vatican II enumerate the elements held in common that constitute this greater or lesser communion. Similarly, a Catholic might not share his local bishop’s or the pope’s view on, say, the war in Afghanistan and still be in substantial communion with him on all that counts for salvation.
Merci, Claire.
Fr. K
for all the reasons cirted in your former thread as you say.
ITM.I’d like to hear from the many thoughtful voices here beyond Bill D.We certainly could use some more thoughts from Ann O. for example.
Anne: LG 15 speaks of “a communion of some prayers and spiritual benefits and indeed a certain conjunction in the Holy Spirit” that can obtain between Catholics and non-Catholics. UR speaks several times of a lack of “full” communion, and says that “those who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are established in a certain communion, even if not perfect, with the Catholic Church”. It says that sacred actions performed in their communities can open the way to the “communion of salvation.” You are being more “Catholic” (of a certain sort) than the Council was, not to mention post-conciliar magisterial texts.
Think of the thing concretely: that is, of a non-Catholic woman whom you find shares your Catholic faith in the Trinity and in the saving death and elevating resurrection of Jesus Christ, but not, say, in the role of the pope in the Church. Will you say that this sharing (which is what “communion” means) is not real, although not full? Pope John used to recommend that in our conversations with non-Catholic Christians we start, not with what separates us, but with what we have in common, which in some cases is very much indeed.
This thread´s attention to the reporting of other than distressing news surfaces several thoughts. To me, Allen represents a fairly small and fragile engaged center in American Catholicism. He writes about a world inhabited by engaged American Catholics who often seem to align with either progressive or conservative sensibilies. Voices not easily pidgeon-holed and/or centrist predictably ecan arn their ire. ¨Our¨ narrative, whether of withering contempt or fawning deference for the church, must apparently be defended from those who can swing both ways, who don´t loathe those of the other persuasion. Sadly, Allen is particularly suspect in this regard and regularly gets pillioried by both camps. The agreed assumption, apparently: to live ´between´ the two dominant narratives is to be inauthentic. Sad.
Another is the woundedness that sets the stage for these apparently automatic reactions. Rare is the Catholic of either persuasion who has been engaged over the last decades and hasn´t been deeply wounded. Consciousness of wounds borne seem to overshadow wounds inflicted, but do we seriously believe that we are the only ones scared?
Finally, I wonder how generational is all of this? Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part but I would like to think that the much smaller cohort of younger engaged Catholics is less wounded, less polarized, less loathing, and more capable of both affirming and challenging the church.
Bob Nunz @ 10:56 said: “But didn’t we somewhere back have some discussion on how Catholic journalists are under more pressure to report things in a certain way?”
Maybe your diocesan “newspaper” gives full coverage of a variety of viewpoints, but I have yet to find one. The 2 with which I am very familiar have become over the last few years absolutely sophomoric in the choice of things to report, the quality of that reporting and, concurrently, the choice of reporters.
So, yes, if Catholic journalists actually want to be publised in anything over which a bishop has any say, (s) will have to “report things in a certain way.”
Father Joseph, with all due respect, it is what separates us that keeps us from being in communion, to begin with.
Welcome back, Nancy.
I’ m glad Nancy’s posting again, too.
Me too.
John Allen did a thorough analysis of Opus Dei several years ago, culminating in a well balanced and very informative book. I think it changed him, subtly but unmistakably, and for the better.
A typical question they ask me: “You’re an educated woman. How can you remain Catholic?”
Claire–As part of removing their vincible ignorance, do you gently point out the rudeness of the question? Can you imagine any other word being substituted for Catholic in the question, except perhaps Republican, that would be acceptable in polite society?
Mark, I actually welcome the question, because it shows some interest. It makes me very happy to see that they are curious enough to have questions (and, as you may have noticed, I am almost immune to rudeness).
Usually I don’t address those myths directly, because that takes us into negative, argumentative territory. Often they have never had an experience of prayer, and we are like aliens staring at one another across a chasm – belief one one side, unbelief on the other. So, instead of arguing against the myths or complaining about rudeness (which, in truth, doesn’t bother me), I try to find things we have in common.
When talking to non-believers, that usually takes us to either talking about one of the three transcendentals, or talking about love – something that we agree is essential, but also mysterious. If an atheist can grasp that we both share a common sense of mystery, and that I believe that that mystery gives us an intuition of the divine, then my belief is a little bit less alien to him or her.
Alternatively, I might talk about times when I have doubts. The hope is that, if I am willing to reveal my occasional fears about whether this is not all a big charade, they might also be willing to acknowledge that sometimes they might also have doubts about their unbelief. Also, when I talk about some of the weaknesses of my faith, they can see that I am not so different from them.
It’s not clear that my response is of any use; I have never converted anyone! But it’s a big help in connecting to other people, and that’s already something, isn’t it?
It sure is! And that’s a pretty damn useful response.