“A serious and long lasting chill”
One story that we haven’t commented on here yet has been the ecumenical implications of a decision by the Church of England to ordain women bishops. Cardinal Walter Kasper has been warning the CofE that moving ahead with such ordinations would create a “serious and long lasting chill” between the Catholic Church and the Anglican communion. The London Times reported on Kasper’s comments:
He made clear that while the Catholic Church would not break off talks with Anglicans, the tone of ecumenical dialogue would change. “Ecumenical dialogue in the true sense of the word has as its goal the restoration of full Church Communion. That has been the presupposition of our dialogue until now. That presupposition would realistically no longer exist following the introduction of the ordination of women to episcopal office.”
Above all, all hopes of intercommunion would end. “The shared partaking of the one Lord’s table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance. Instead of moving towards one another we would coexist alongside one another,” he said.
The British Catholic weekly The Tablet has also commented on the situation, noting an apparent irony:
There is not much room for dispute about this. Anglican bishops may ask themselves the slightly different question: does it really matter? Hasn’t the historic process of theological and personal rapprochement and reconciliation gone as far as it can go? (And isn’t the unwillingness of Rome to engage in a theological debate about female ordination also part of the problem?) But now they have to face a new question, vital to their own future. Can they demand that the American Church halts or reverses its moves towards homosexual bishops, for the greater good of the communio, while the Church of England dismisses an appeal from Rome over women bishops on the same grounds? Or to put it bluntly, how do they say “Yes” to women bishops and “No” to gay bishops?
In related news, the Episcopal Church USA has become the first national church of the Anglican Communion to appoint a woman as presiding bishop.
I think it might make sense to draw some distinctions.
The women bishops question relates to ontology– The fundmaental question is whether the church possesses of the power to ordain women to the priesthood. Does the sacrament of holy orders, in other words, “take” on a woman? It seems to me that once you’ve answered this question affrimatively, the only thing left to argue about regarding women bishops is politics and timing. Or am I wrong? Is there a principled argument to distinguish between ordaining women to the priesthood and ordaining them as bishops?
The question about gay bishops is about morals, not about ontology. No one doubts I believe, that the ordination of a practicing male homosexual would “take” — the question is, whether it would be a source of scandal. The underlying question is whether homosexual activity is always sinful. I think the problem with ordaining a practicing homosexual as a bishop has to do with the fact that the Anglican communion hasn’t settled the logically prior question of the morality of homosexual activity in favor of saying that it is (at least under some circumstances) morally acceptable. So practicing homosexual bishops are in a morally awkward position.
At any rate, I think ithat it is important that we not run different questions together.
I will address the women priesthood question. As many scholars have noted it is so difficult to discern what happened in the early church, especially in the first 150 years. Clearly, at the time of Paul, females were in leadership positions equal to Paul.
Two facts are worthy of note about Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza’s take on the Woman who Anoints Jesus. Jesus shows that a woman is doing such an important act and secondly, that it should remind us to take care of the poor.
Given that Christianity has done such a poor job with women and the poor, people like Schussler-Fiorenza should be given much more attention.
So that “whenever this gospel is preached” this woman prophet would be remembered
and it is also a reminder to do good for the poor. Not as has been explained that
the poor will always be with us, thus relieving us of the responsibility of
doing something about it.
Thus “….Jesus, called forth a discipleship of equals that still needs to
be discovered and realized by women and men today…..
“Although the Eucharistic formula ‘in remembrance of me’ (1Cor.11:24-25) is verbally similar to the gospel proclamation ‘in remembrance of her,’ the later church has not ritualized this story of the woman prophet, using it instead to assert as God’s will that poverty cannot be eliminated. The ‘church of the poor’ and the ‘church of the women’ must be recovered at the same time, if ‘solidarity from below’ is to become a reality for the whole community of Jesus again. As a feminist vision, the basileia vision of Jesus calls all women without exception to wholeness and selfhood, as well as solidarity with those women who are the impoverished, the maimed and outcasts of our society and church. It knows of the deadly violence such a vision and commitment will encounter.It enables us not to despair or relinquish the struggle in the face of such violence. It empowers up to walk upright, freed from the double oppression of societal and religious sexism and prejudice.” In Memory of Her, pgs 153-154.
Perhaps when Rome stops congratulating itself on all its accomplishments, it will take the lead in promoting justice for women and the poor.
Cathy’s point is absolutely central. Certainly if women can be ordained to the priesthood, they can also be bishops. But the official RC position seems to be that we are not prepared to debate the merits of ordaining women in ontological terms; rather we say that Jesus never “ordained” any women and that therefore we must assume that we are not authorized to do so. I have heard other arguments offered in terms of what might be called appropriateness, but none of them seems logically decisive. In a way it is like “and with your spirit”. The best argument for it seems to be itsantiquity. The others one hears seem highly artificial.
I don’t believe there was ever or is likely to be any real chance of intercommunion, so saying that the appointment of a woman bishop is the death knell of such a hope strikes me as a bit disingenuous.
A bigger impediment to intercommunion is the way in which Anglicans and Catholics view the eucharist itself. There’s nothing in Anglicanism that prohibits believing in transubstantiation, just as it was determined some months ago that there’s nothing that prohibits a belief in the assumption of the Virgin Mary.
But Anglicans aren’t required to believe in either, and to my knowledge, aren’t encouraged to, either, though that depends in part on whether you’re low, broad, spiky or Anglo-Catholic.
I hate to ask (it sounds as if something painful is involved), but curiosity got the better of me– Jean, what in the world is a “spiky” Anglican?
The Anglican church has long since ceased being either demographically of consequence or a primary interest of Catholic ecumenical efforts.
In our context, our energies would be better used by creating ties those who are much, much closer to us theologically–I am thinking mostly about serious evangelicals.
I’m hoping Jean won’t mind my adding my two cents about “spiky Anglicans” ahead of her response. (I have to leave on travel shortly.) I’ll also be interested in seeing if her understanding of the term is the same as mine.
Spiky Anglicans are very high Anglicans, leaning to Catholicism at least in terms of forms of liturgy. “Spiky,” in my understanding comes from the spike at the base of a candle holder. The taller the candle–like in those used at a high Mass–the longer the spike that is needed to keep the candle from falling over.
This was explained to me by an Anglican who was low and not spiky, so other comments welcome.
We need descriptive terms such as “spiky” to describe Catholics. :)
“Spiky” and “high up the candle” are synonymous in some Anglican circles, so I think Bill is correct about the origin of the term.
Spky refers to liturgical practices (kneeling, making the sign of the cross, incense and bells).
Most Anglo-Catholics tend to be spiky, but not all spiky Anglicans are Anglo-Catholics.
Spiky parishes are often are the richer ones, since a spiky church needs expensive accoutrements–stained glass, fancy communion rail cushions, censers, aspergers, candles, statues for the “scattering garden,” etc.
Spikiness can also lead to some horrors like the Church Ladies suggesting that the priest use champagne instead of red communion wine for the main Christmas service. (The priest put the kibosh on this., and that same priest would be scandalized to see that our RC parish uses white wine in the cup. Frankly, I guess I’m still Anglican enough for it to bug me, too, as well as the bedlam of the Peace passing, holding hands at the Our Father, and the singing of hymns during Communion.).
I tend to agree with the mysterious “mlj” that the Roman Catholic Church is probably wasting its time if “Anglicans” is construed as “Episcopalians.” They’re not interested in going back to Rome; there are too many ex-Catholics who left the RC church in a huff, largely over birth control, divorce and, more recently, teachings about gay people.
Dealing with Anglicans is like herding cats–each country has its own “version” of Anglicanism, some closer to Roman Catholicism than others, and like I was sayin’, there are gradations within each. So how you reach agreement with the whole bunch of them is beyond me.
Why mlj thinks evangelicals are more theologically aligned with Catholics puzzles me.
The ones I know believe it’s a sin to drink alcohol (so much for communion), believe literally that “you should call no man father” (meaning priests), that Catholics worship statues, and that Purgatory, Limbo and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary are heresies.
I think the Church should do its best to engage all people of faith, but the evangelicals might be a bunch of tough customers.
Cathy Kaveny is correct on the distinction between the “ontology” of female bishops and the “ethics” of practicing homosexual bishops, but a third term–”ecclesiology” or “communion”–is needed to place them in proper context. This is the point of the Tablet’s editorial cited by Peter.
The bishop’s ministry is one of unity–within one’s diocese, one’s church or worldwide communion, and the entire Church of Christ; all three dimensions of unity are essential and interdependent. It should also be noted that such communion touches not only all places but all times; it is historical as well as geographical. Christians have a responsibility not only to their contemporary brothers and sisters in Christ but to all of their predecessors in the past and their descendants in the future.
Thus, although the ordination of women to the episcopacy is the greater problem–for it calls into question the validity not only of their own episcopal ordination, but also that of the priestly ministry exercised by those men and women ordained by a female bishop–both sets of actions wound the communion of the individual member churches of the Anglican Communion, the worldwide Communion itself, and the entire Church of Christ. Bishops are divided among themselves, churches are divided among themselves, and the Gospel, ecumenical call “that all may be one” (John 17) is crippled.
Cardinal Kasper’s June 6th address to the Church of England raised these points with remarkable friendliness and firmness. It can be found at < <http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/060606%20Kasper%20speech.htm>>
Chris,
What role do you think the third category has apart from one’s assessment of the validity of the arguments made in the first two? Do you think one could put forward the “communio” argument if one really thought the arguments favored the ordinations in question? And what would the communio argument look like from when set out from that perspective?
So let’s make it hard, for an example. Suppose, for example one branch of Christianity refused to ordain black men. Suppose another branch of Christianity was thought that this refusal was ultimately justified and unjust. What independent weight does or should the communio argument have in this context?
Or go back to St. Paul and the controversy over circumcision. If the Church at Jersualem had theratened to break off communion over this issue, should Paul have acquiesed?
OOPS– line three, second para: should read “ultimately UNjustified and unjust”
Sorry!
Just a background question: Does anybody know what would lead to intercommunion between Anglicans and Catholics?
As I understand it, Anglicans (and all other Protestant sects) would pretty much have to admit that they’re heretics and convert.
They aren’t like the uniate churches, which had their own pre-schismatic Orthodox traditions that they were allowed to keep when they returned to RC authority.
But the argument I’ve always heard from Catholics is that Anglican “traditions” are post-schismatic, so the comparison between Anglicans and uniates doesn’t work.
At the lay level, the differences between Anglicans and Roman Catholics is extremely blurry. I didn’t find when I converted that I needed to “correct” my thinking so much as expand it to include things that Anglicans (and most Protestants) ignore–veneration of the saints, holy days of obligation, teachings about the Virgin Mary, etc.
Cathy,
I think all three terms—ontology, ethics, and communion—are inseparable. My posting did not state that communion was more important or that it functions independently of the others.
The late Jean-Marie Tillard, a French Dominican who was a founding member of the international Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue and who served on its various permutations for over thirty years until his death in 2000, said that Christians “have a responsibility to those who confessed the faith before us.” That saying doesn’t rule out doctrinal development, but it does place the burden of proof on those who would change long-standing teachings and practices. Unless the reasons advanced for such changes are overwhelming and receive the equally overwhelming support of the entire community, then such changes should be deferred or rejected. In the case of the priestly and episcopal ordination of women, those reasons and that support are not presently overwhelming—even within the Anglican Communion itself.
Think, too, of how the inherently consensual character of councils and synods frustrates those of more extreme or radical temperaments. Writing in his diary during Vatican II, Yves Congar criticized Hans Küng for the latter’s refusal to participate in the official conciliar commissions and for his failure to temper his critical search for truth with a concern for concrete situations. And, in his magisterial True and False Reform in the Church, Congar stated that there were four essential conditions for true reform in (and not apart from or alongside of or outside of) the church: the primacy of charity, remaining in communion with the whole church, patience, and a return to the sources of tradition. Might one say that Congar—the preeminent 20th-century Catholic theologian of ecumenism and reform—counsels casuistic discernment over prophetic statement?
These principles help resolve your hard cases. Those arguing against the ordination of black men would have neither ontology nor communion (nor ethics) on which to stand. Moreover, they would be arguing for a change in church teaching and practice—as indicated, for instance, by over 1500 years of Ethiopian priests—which would then place the burden of proof on them.
As for your second example, Jerusalem didn’t threaten to break off communion—despite the agitation of some of its members—precisely because it recognized that communal discernment was necessary before any action was to be taken. James listened—with, I imagine, some discomfort and anger at first—to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas and was convinced that “no further burden” should be placed on Gentiles. That discernment changed each of the apostles, but, again, the burden of proof was not on James, but on the others. Only when that proof was forthcoming, did change occur.
Bringing it back to female bishops and practicing homosexual bishops, the original subject of Peter’s posting, these principles don’t mean that discussion and debate should cease, but they do mean that such conversation must be bounded by the truth of communion and the communion of truth—never one without the other. Communion without truth leads to totalitarianism, but truth without communion leads to heresy and schism.
Chris,
Thanks for the four rules of Congar which somebody should post as a topic in itself to be thrashed out. Wasn’t Congar pretty disappointed in the post Council hierarchy?
I wonder whether all the Apostles ever agreed to the changes. Doesn’t Luke attempt to patch up and gloss over some differences in his effort to portray a united front?
And for heavens sake, when we agree that there was diversity in the early church, what do we mean by it and how can we learn from it.? By the time of Augustine orthodoxy has triumphed. But at what cost?
And doesn’t your concluding sentence prove that we have to agree to have differences which are not essential, like ordination of women? Can we really argue that we cannot celebrate the Lord’s Supper with a woman as presidor?
Bill asked “Can we really argue that we cannot celebrate the Lord’s Supper with a woman as presidor?”
If “presidor” means the “celebrant” then the answer is:
Yes – because:
http://tinyurl.com/f8myj
Liz the Maid
Chris,
You say: “Communion without truth leads to totalitarianism, but truth without communion leads to heresy and schism.” The first half of your aphorism has some plausibility, but the second has rather less. Truth and the love of truth is fundamental to unity. It is not truth or even the search for truth as such that leads to division and the loss of unity but rather the vanity with which we, without honest scrutiny, hold tenaciously to our opinions as undoubted truths. Comfortable, reasssuring fictions–and there are liberal as well as conservative fictions of this sort–are among the most deadly enemies of unity in the church.
Thanks to Chris for the URL to the full text of Cardinal Kasper’s speech. The link in his posting wasn’t live, so here is another shot at it:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/060606%20Kasper%20speech.htm
The whole text really needs to be read. The Times article didn’t convey the friendly tone in which the speech was delivered, and it presented his brutal-sounding ultimatum–don’t proceed to ordain women bishops or lose all hope of unity and intercommunion with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.– without commenting on the case he presented against going ahead, or the case he made against ordaining women as priests in the first place.
On the ordination of women as priests he notes that the position of the Catholic Church can only be understood and evaluated if one recognizes that the argumentation has a biblical basis” but that the “Church understands the Bible in the light of the whole 2, 000 year tradition of all the ancient churches. . . . ” He admits that “ historically conditioned views at times had some influence on this tradition” and that “there are some arguments belonging to the past that we do not reiterate today.” But he asserts that” it can be academically demonstrated that the rejection of ordination of women within the tradition was not predicated on contemporary concepts alone but in essence on theological arguments. Therefore it should not be assumed that the Catholic Church will one day revise its current position. The Catholic Church is convinced that she has no right to do so.”
Now, Cardinal Kasper doesn’t explain here what the convincing theological argument is, (and I must admit I have never encountered one). But he offers a quotation from Pope Benedict’s address to the clergy of Rome about the exclusion of women from governance of the church (though there are other ministries for them) in a footnote at the end of the speech. The core of Benedict’s message seems to be:
“the priestly ministry of the Lord, as we know, is reserved to men, since the priestly ministry is government in the deep sense, which, in short, means it is the Sacrament [of Orders] that governs the Church.
This is the crucial point. It is not the man who does something, but the priest governs, faithful to his mission, in the sense that it is the Sacrament, that is, through the Sacrament it is Christ himself who governs, both through the Eucharist and in the other Sacraments, and thus Christ always presides.”
This explanation of the practice has the usual circularity to be found in Papal comments on women and ordination. I am sure it isn’t the theological argument Kasper thinks is so convincing. But can anyone offer such an argument or locate it for us?
It’s disheartening to hear some flip off our ecumeincal relations with Anglicans(with whom we’re so cxlose on many things) over the women’s ordination issue. It’s even more disheartening to hear that the strongest arguments against woman’s ordination is found in “history;” that sounds surprisingly like the old “we’ve always done it that way argument.
Not so long ago \. Holy Mother considered women slightly lower than children and imbeciles. Would it not be better, as Ms. Kaveny recently argued in America to use a methodolgy of ENGAGEMENT (the current understanding of women and “do the hard intellectual work?
Chris,
You and Cardinal Kasper obviously don’t think the ontological grounds — or the moral grounds — favor ordaining women or practicing homosexuals. So the communio argument is easy for you to make.
It also is not likely to be received well by your interlocutors, who are likely going to say either, “you are breaking communion with us,” or “we have no choice –the truth compels us to do as we do.”
So, what I’m trying to consider is how one would approach the communio issue if one didn’t agree with the ontological or the moral grounds as you and Cardinal Kasper see them. That was the point of my hypotheticals, which you dissolved rather than addressed.
So, please choose your own hypothetical. Pick a situation where you think change is justified, but resisted by some segment of the church. And show me how you would go about weighing communio against truth.
And as an aside, I think it’s important to read history as well as speculative theology. Any one who has read John Nooan’s book on development in moral theology would realize that none of the changes he talks about, at the time people were agitating for them, came any where near meeting Congar’s burden of proof.
Not on slavery. NOt on usury. And definitely not on religious liberty.
But then again, guess which Pope was the first to declare owning slaves an intrinsically evil act?
A. Gregory the Great
B. Leo XIII
C. John Paul II
JPII., in Veritatis Splendor in 1993.
We Catholics were scandolously slow in coming to terms with slavery.
Dear Cathy,
I disagree with your observation about the Church and slavery.
The popes were very clear in teaching that slavery, especially trans-Atlantic slavery was wrong. Dissent from papal teaching slowed the reception of the popes’ teaching, however.
Eugene IV: Sicut Dudum, 1435
60 years BEFORE the discovery of the New World ordered liberty for slaves in the Canary Islands within 15 days or those who enslaved the islanders faced excommunication.
Paul III: Sublimis Deus, 1537
“…by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples-even though they are outside the faith-who shall hereafter come to the knowledge of Christians have not been deprived or should not be deprived of their liberty or of their possessions. Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery, and that whatever happens to the contrary is to be considered null and void. These same Indians and other peoples are to be invited to the said faith in Christ by preaching and the example of a good life.”
Their teaching was continued by Gregory XIV in 1591 and by Urban VIII in 1639. Indeed Urban, in his document Commissum Nobis, appealed to the teaching of his predecessors, particularly Paul III. The pontifical teaching was continued by the response of the Holy Office on March 20, 1686, under Innocent XI, and by the encyclical of Benedict XIV, Immensa Pastorum, on December 20, 1741. This work was followed by the efforts of Pius VII at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to have the victors over Napoleon outlaw slavery.
The 1839 Constitution In Supremo by Gregory XVI continued the antislavery teaching of his predecessors, and was the object of much pro-slavery dissent.
“The slave trade, although it has been somewhat diminished, is still carried on by numerous Christians. Therefore, desiring to remove such a great shame from all Christian peoples … and walking in the footsteps of Our Predecessors, (READ THIS NEXT LINE):
We, by apostolic authority, warn and strongly exhort in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to bother unjustly, despoil of their possessions, or reduce to slavery (in servitutem redigere) Indians, Blacks or other such peoples….
…Nor are they to lend aid and favor to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not humans but rather mere animals, having been brought into slavery in no matter what way, are, without any distinction and contrary to the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold and sometimes given over to the hardest labor.”
“We prohibit and strictly forbid any Ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this trade in Blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse, or from publishing or teaching in any manner whatsoever, in public or privately, opinions contrary to what We have set forth in these Apostolic Letters.”
The Maryland Jesuits and the Sisters of Nazareth continued to hold on to their slaves despite the papal order. American bishops spun the document to condemn the slave trade but not slavery. The above shows that their interpretation was strained and most American Catholics never read the document and needed to rely on their bishops to inform them of its content.
But we know that dissent continued then just as it does today. The popes were more successful in communicating their message in Europe & parts of Latin America (including Mexico) then they were in the Protestant US.
As always facts have to be placed in proper order and context.
1435 AD
Pope Eugenius IV condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in the Canary Islands, but does not condemn slavery as such.
1454 AD
Through the bull Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicholas V authorises the king of Portugal to enslave all the Saracen and pagan peoples his armies may conquer.
1493 AD
Pope Alexander VI authorises the King of Spain to enslave non-Christians of the Americas who are at war with Christian powers.
1537 AD
Pope Paul III condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America.
1548 AD
The same Pope Paul III confirms the right of clergy and laity to own slaves.
1639 AD
Pope Urban VIII denounces the indiscriminate enslavement of Indians in South America, without denying the four ‘just titles’ for owning slaves.
1741 AD
Pope Benedict XIV condemns the indiscriminate enslavement of natives in Brazil, but does not denounce slavery as such, nor the importation of slaves from Africa.
1839 AD
Pope Gregory XVI condemns the international negro slave trade, but does not question slavery as such, nor the domestic slave trade.
1866 AD
The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope Pius IX declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons … It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given”.
The turn around
1888 AD
Pope Leo III condemns slavery in more general terms, and supports the anti-slavery movement.
1918 AD
The new Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope Benedictus XV condemns ‘selling any person as a slave’. (There is no condemnation of ‘owning’ slaves, however).
1965 AD
The Second Vatican Council defends basic human rights and denounces all violations of human integrity, including slavery (Gaudium et Spes, no 27,29,67).
Bill says almost everything I would like to have said and he has taken the trouble to get the facts out in the open. The Maid’s highly selective anthology suggests that she has either been deceived by others or intends to deceive us. I have no doubt that the former is the case. I would only add one point to Bill’s list. As John Noonan has shown it was the British Empire that most strongly opposed the slave trade in the 19th century when it began to use its navy to stop slave ships. It was at the urging of the British government that Gregory XVI, uneasy as he was about taking advice from Protestants or worse, finally agreed to condemn, not slavery, but the trade. It was the Catholics of Spain and Portugal who were still in the business.
Where is the turn around Bill references? Slavery in ancient times is not the same as the trans-Atlantic chattel slave trade we usually consider in these discussions.
The 19th c. British Empire is given credit for ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade while she observed the depopulation of Ireland (1845-9).
Give the Catholic countries some credit – not everyone was dissenting against the abolitionist leaning popes of the time.
In 1794 France generally outlawed slavery (18th c.) and banned it everywhere by 1818.
Spain outlawed slavery in 1820.
Slavery was outlawed in Mexico in 1824, and the last slave was freed there in 1829.
Mexico’s ban on slavery helped inspire the Texas rebellion.
In 1833 Britain outlawed slavery altogether but agricultural slaves had to continue working for their masters until 1840.
Nothing Bill put forward contradicts what the Maid offered though he does mix apples and oranges when discussing P.O.W.’s along side (chattel slavery) especially within the context of the period’s social/economic structure.
Nothing said in 1965 contradicts previous teaching – only contingencies change. No one here has shown otherwise. Sublimis Deus does condemn the practice of slavery with all the zeal of Gaudium et Spes IMO.
The Maid
It’s impossible to referee this dispute unless we know what “slavery” means from one context to another.
Joe and Bill are correct, in my judgment.
I too think the Maid’s version of history is highly deceptive; I commend to her and to anyone interested Noonan’s book.
Perhaps she could cite the historian she is relying upon for her argument.
In my judgment, Noonan does a particularly good job of debunking the distinction between different slavery in ancient times and slavery today.
Focus on this proposition.
“It is always and everywhere wrong to own another person as property.” This proposition is recognized today to be a true statement of morality.
It is simply not the case that this proposition was always recognized to be a true statement by the ordinary magisterium of the Church.
And I think it is indisuptable that Catholics were not on the vanguard of the leaders in the political movement against slavery, even in the US. Look at McGreevy’s book., for example. The Maryland Jesuits were slave owners.
Now, one could argue that no document of the church infallibly proclaimed the liceity of owning slaves.
And you might say that the ordinary magisterium is not much worse than everyone else–it’s view of morality is culturally and historically conditioned.
But is “not much worse than everyone else” really a good defense?
.
Stripped of all
Maid:
Your source has deceived you by selective citing of evidence. It is absurd to equate Sublimis Deus with the pronouncements of Vatican II and John Paul II. Paul III in Sublimis Deus (1537) forbade the enslavement of Indians and others encountered by the European invaders of the New World. It was decent of him to do so. But he in no way condemned slavery as such or the holding of slaves, nor can he have intended to do so. Consider the position the same Paul took in 1548. I cite Noonan, A Church… p. 79:
By apostolic authority…the pope decreed that slaves fleeing to the Capitol and there, according to custom claiming freedom, were not freed and “were to be returned to their masters in slavery and, if it is seen appropriate, punished as fugitives.” The decree, the pope added, included those slaves who had become Christians after their enslavement and slaves born to Christian slaves. The right of inhabitants of Rome to buy, sell, and contract publicly as to slaves of both sexes was affirmed. Broader, plainer, more matter-of-fact legislation cutting off an escape from slavery could not be imagined.
Perhaps, if I may loosely paraphrase Cathy, Paul III was no worse than anyone else, probably better than many, who would have also enslaved the Indians. I would say that for one who claims the title “Vicar of Christ” a higher standard of moral discernment seems to be in order. Of course Peter never claimed that title, nor did his successors for some centuries.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. points out in “First Things” than Noonan’s book is “unconvincing” and “manipulat(ive).
The Jesuit Cardinal writes:
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0510/reviews/dulles.html
“The reader should be warned, however, that Noonan manipulates the evidence to make it seem to favor his own preconceived conclusions. For some reason, he is intent on finding discontinuity—but he fails to establish that the Church has reversed her teaching in any of the four areas he examines.”
And…
“Did John Paul II, by including slavery in his list of social evils, effect the revolution in Catholic moral theology that Noonan attributes to him? It seems to me that if he had wanted to assert his position as definitive he would have had to say more clearly how he was defining slavery. He would have had to make it clear that he was rejecting the nuanced views of the biblical writers and Catholic theologians for so many past centuries. If any form of slavery could be justified under any conditions, slavery as such would not be, in the technical sense, intrinsically evil. …
Neither the Catechism of the Catholic Church nor the recent Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, in their discussions of slavery, speaks so absolutely.
For all these reasons Noonan’s case for a reversal of doctrine is unconvincing.”
I agree with Dulles.
Maid:
Before you judge Noonan’s work on the basis of Dulles’s review, I would urge you to read all of Noonan, including the endnotes and documentation. I cannot seriously doubt that John Paul accepted the view that now prevails in the civilized world, viz., that the institution of slavery is intrinsically evil; and if he had not accepted this view, he would surely have had the courage and felt the obligation to refute it. I would unhesitatingly say the same of Benedict as well. Dulles does John Paul no service by casting doubt on his views, though he doubtless meant no harm.
Is discontinuity demonstrated only by reversal? Don’t think so.
To the Maid of Kent:
The Papacy’s attitude toward slavery is a matter of historic record. Unfortunately, there are some Internet sites that purport to offer useful information on the subject, but in fact omit key facts and offer a selective and distorted picture of the matter. Perhaps you have been influenced by some of these sites. A good example of one that may sound plausible but is quite misleading, is to be found at :
http://www.cfpeople.org/Apologetics/page51a003.html
Fr. Joel Panzer in “The Popes and Slavery: Setting the Record Straight” on this site covers much of the ground you do in your posting. But his presentation is sadly deficient because of its many omissions. Consider for example just the way in which he chooses to focus only on transatlantic, “racial slavery,’ as he puts it, thus eliding the entire previous history of the Papacy and slavery, and avoiding consideration of earlier legitimation of various types of slavery by the Papacy. The many occasions he cites on which various Popes may have for their own reasons condemned slavery in some specific case, locale, situation, simply do not add up to a clear and absolute condemnation of slavery in principle. For that you need to wait until Vatican II and John Paul II.
The problem here, the root of our disagreement is probably in
a. a failure to define just what we mean by “slavery” chattel or ancient and how that relates to something being intrinsically evil (like abortion)and, therefore, never legitimate at any time, in any form, in any place. For example, a slave master can be kind and generous to her slave but those words in reference to an abortionist and his unborn victim fail by definition.
And
b. disagreement with Cardinal Newman’s and the Church’s idea of doctrinal development. Newman points out that true doctrinal development does not contradict or reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed in the past (see his 7 Signs of Doctrinal Development).
I refer again to Fr. Dulles who points out that no doctrinal reversal has taken place re. slavery:
“(For a reversal in RC moral theology on slavery Pope JP II) would have had to make it clear that he was rejecting the nuanced views of the biblical writers and Catholic theologians for so many past centuries. If any form of slavery could be justified under any conditions, slavery as such would not be, in the technical sense, intrinsically evil. …”
Chattel Trans-Atlantic slavery was very different from the slavery practiced in antiquity – something any student can tell any of us. Dr. T. Sowell has written a great deal on that issue: http://www.hoover.org/bios/sowell.html.
FWIW, since the original thread was about Anglican-Catholic relations, here’s a bit on Episcopalians, slavery, and discussions about “reparations,” which strike some as patronizing:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13072926/
Maid:
Slavery always involves the situation in which A owns B where B is a human being.
Christian theologians, while accepting slavery and the legitimacy of such ownership of human persons, have restricted the property rights of A in such cases. I doubt John Paul would really have said, if you asked him, that slavery as I have defined it was allowable. It would be too much to expect that he would explicitly contradict his predecessor Pius IX but in fact his express views on this and other matters do contradict those of Pius. As for Dulles, he fails to note the Motu Proprio of Paul III (1548) . Perhaps he had forgotten that he read about it in Noonan as he wrote the review. Certainly conditions of slavery have differed in times and places. Ownership of a person is the essence. Ownership of a person is morally repugnant. It took many people a long time to accept that. I shall say no more on the subject.