Where is the ‘sensus fidelium’?
Russell Shaw of OSV has a column at InsideCatholic.com that discusses “Polarization and the Church” and takes a not unexpected tilt in blaming what I guess would be considered the “left,” though Shaw sees it as a problem of politically-oriented bishops versus religiously-orthodox. (He also pins much of the blame on Barack Obama, but says it’s nothing personal–just politics.)
But the interesting part, for me, comes at the end, when Shaw argues that the divide in the Church is really between practicing, mass-going Catholics and less observant or largely “lapsed” (or “col-lapsed,” in NYT editor Bill Keller’s coinage) Catholics.
“On the whole, the polarization of American Catholics isn’t a split among practicing members of the Church.
According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, only 23 percent of Catholic adults in the United States now attend Mass every Sunday — which is to say 77 percent do not. Moreover, reports CARA, 75 percent receive the Sacrament of Penance — confess their sins, that is — less than once a year or never.
This isn’t American Catholicism at some point in an imagined future — it’s a snapshot of where we are now: three out of four adults seldom or never participating in the central religious acts of their Church, while only one in four does. Here’s the real polarization of American Catholics.
In the Notre Dame dust-up, 56 percent of Catholics who don’t attend weekly Mass thought the university did the right thing by honoring Obama, but only 37 percent of the weekly Mass-attenders agreed. More polarization. Instead of criticizing the university’s critics, bishops would do well to address this pervasive crisis at its roots, while at the same time considering the possibility that the views of people who go to Mass every week are the sensus fidelium at work.”
There are some inherent problems in Shaw’s invocation of polling data to locate the sensus fidelium. For one thing, the Pew poll he refers to showing a 45-37 majority of weekly attenders disapproving of the ND invite included only white non-Hispanic Catholics. That’s a pretty big hole in the poll.
Also a Quinnipiac poll just before Obama’s visit to ND showed that weekly mass-goers felt Notre Dame should not rescind the invite by a slim 49-43 percent majority.
So pick your numbers. But Shaw does raise an interesting and very relevant question of theology and, I suppose, sociology and political science: Who gets to speak for the church, and above all, where does the sensus fidelium reside? Is it among mass-goers or all the baptized? At what point does one become sufficiently “practicing” to be counted as part of the sensus fidelium?
This is, I suppose, an irrelevant exercise in many respects. But it is also inevitable as the church has a voice in the affairs of the day, and figuring out what that voice is would be a question for political sicentists and the Holy Spirit. And I think Russell Shaw raises an issue that Catholics themselves of all stripes sense–that those who attend have a larger say in the sensus fidelium because they are developing their sense of the faith. Maybe it comes down to a sense of possessiveness, maybe something else.
The issue you raise, David, is a very good one, and difficult to address. Anyone who wants to identify the results of polling with a theologically significant, or even normative, sensus fidelium might wish to look at the results of polls of southern Catholics in the 1950s with regard to their attitudes towards black Americans. As for who are to be counted among the “believers” (which is what “the faithful” in the phrase means) whose “sense” is considered significant, surely it makes a difference whether they are living faith-full lives (and this a faith that is expressed practically in love), whether they have an adult understanding of their faith, and a lot of other factors. Suppose you had a serious personal question to address and you wanted some Christian advice: whom would you rather consult: a lukewarm or indifferent Christian, or one whom you knew to be serious about his Christianity in all of its aspects?
Father, I think the issue is more complicated than your final question suggests. There are “indifferent Christians” in the pew every week, and “serious” Christians who stay away from the Church because they are serious. Even Vatican 2 said that there are those who, lacking charity, are in the church only in a bodily way, which I would suppose means that their faith is not the faith of the faithful.
This is the problem with Shaw’s method, I think. Can we use an easy rule, like who goes to church, to determine who is faithful?
Sociologist Dr William D’Antonio CU identifies the Pre Vatican II Catholics as by far the most Mass attending. They were born before 1940 and are dying out. And they may be the only group who knows what ‘sensus fidelium’ means. Latin died, remember! I believe both the ND fiasco and the investigation of the religious sisters are sad attempts by the episcopal restorationists to show muscle that has steadily attrophied at an alarming rate.
CARA also identifies the 15-17% of Catholics who have a stake in ministry.. lector,ccd, rcia, etc. These are the ones who I say carry the ‘sensus fidelium’. They too are dying out..
For Shaw to sadly mention Obama as a cause of Catholic malaise, is on par with a ‘birther’ argument.
Father K’s clarification of the faithful as believers is a good one–measuring belief is always a dodgy proposition, and I think the way around that (for Catholics) has been to use markers like mass attendance (stable but low), or reception of the eucharist (high) or recourse to confession (low) or the sacrament of baptism (everyone). The simple question as to whether one can recite the Creed with an assent of heart and mind is a good stating point. But who the hell will ask that on a poll?
Speaking of mind, this also gets to an issue of who understands enough to answer a “serious question” on the faith, for others or themselves. When we say “sensus” we tend to think (or I do) of a kind of mushy, emotional sensibility of the floating universal communion nebula. But there is an intellectual aspect to this, no? As in, some saints can perceive the Truth and the Right viscerally. Most of the rest of us rely on some smart interpreters as well. That’s perhaps not a very spiritual approach, but there it is.
It may be silly even to ask this question, but why did church attendance decline so dramatically among Catholics? Why did the number of priests, brothers, and nuns decline so drastically? When I graduated in 1965, my high school was a Christian Brothers school. Throughout my college years, we kept hearing about the brothers who had taught us leaving the order. Today there is not a single Christian Brother teaching at my former high school.
One of the brothers was a close friend of the family. When he left the order, one of the things he said was that life had been very regimented. All their time had been scheduled. Then, a lot of the rules were relaxed. He said that with all the extra time on their hands, many of the brothers realized they were lonely, and that was one of the causes for leaving. I don’t suppose that explains much of anything about who the faithful are, but I have always thought it was interesting.
In any case, it seems to me that in order to define who the faithful are, you have to have some idea of what motivates (or fails to motivate) those who don’t go to mass weekly or confession at least yearly.
If Shaw wants to use Pew he should attend to the Pew study, which Arcbishop Dolan referred to, which noted that Catholics are fine with God and Jesus but not the hierarchy. This included Catholics who attend mass, which made it so disturbing for Dolan. Dolan understands this better than Shaw who is truly hallucinating and tampering with facts.
I do believe it is important to attend the Eucharist. If one does not then that person’s credibility can be questioned. Christianity is a community religion. There is not getting away from it. Everything points to the “People of God” which is the church. The People of God has to extend to all Christians of good faith who attend the assembly.
Of course, only God can judge and many will have to answer for preventing people from “entering” as Jesus says.
The question: Should ND give an honorary degree to Barack Obama as President of the US? does not seem to be a matter of faith. If it is anything it is a moral question and one that calls for a prudential judgment. Bishops like the rest of us can, is such matters, err. The handling of the sex abuse scandal is one example that come to mind. As for the papal lead is such difficult matters as the Obama affair consider that the Pope has accepted Nicholas Sarkozy as an honorary canon of St. John Lateran and generally seems friendly toward Obama.
If Shaw is right (a big if), then we have a problem. It suggests that the most “devout” American Catholics actually see the world more like American evangelicals than as Catholics in other countries. That’s not something to laud.
To every complex question there’s a simple answer – and it’s the wrong one.
Russell Shaw is a contributor to the polarization in the church.
We are a Eucharistic community but Bill’s point about who’s serious means the question is almost impossible to get at empirically.
I suspect what the sensus fideliul is only becomes apparent over time and a priori judgements tend not to be helpful.
Thanks to Joseph Gannon for pointing out that whether or not ND should have given an honorary degree to the President is hardly a matter of faith, but one on which different answers may be offered within the one household of faith.
Church attendance is a better proxy than any other I can think of off the top of my head for figuring out whose faith constitutes the sensus fidelium. Plus, it offers the advantge of being measurable. The exception, of course – and it’s a huge one, both numerically and in its importance to the Body of Christ – are those who fervently desire to go to church but can’t because they’re homebound or institutionalized. Or, increasingly, because there is no priest to celebrate mass. So maybe it would be better to consider those who *intend to* go to mass (whether they’re able to or not) rather than those who actually go.
If you’re able to get to church, but habitually don’t go, there might be circumstances that don’t point to an underlying detachment from the body of the faithful – but I can’t think of what it would be.
Putting the ND ordeal and the various problems with so-called Catholic universities to one side for a moment, I think David N. is correct in wondering if perhaps the main question should be; why are so many Catholics not practicing their faith?
Why do so many folks who were born Catholic feel, that they need not attend Mass or participate in the life of the Church? Moreover it seem ludicrous that anyone who is a non-practicing Catholic would think they could speak for the Church.
Knowing as we do that we Catholics are blessed to have been given the one, true faith, guarded by the Holy Spirit and passed down to us via the apostles and subsequent popes, it does beg the question; why has attendance at Mass and participation the sacraments and other aspects of parish life declined so much in the last 40 years?
Hello David (and All),
“It may be silly even to ask this question, but why did church attendance decline so dramatically among Catholics? Why did the number of priests, brothers, and nuns decline so drastically?”
I can say what I suspect are the answers to your questions, though I admit I have little proof for what I will claim. To the first question, I think that in the 1960s many of not most Roman Catholics stopped believing that attending Mass on holy days of obligation is required on pain of mortal sin. To the second, I think that again in the 1960s many if not Catholics stopped believing that to be a priest, brother or nun is to live a superior form of life than to be a layperson. That’s a terribly cynical pair of opinions, I know. In fact, I’d love for participants here to prove to me that I am entirely wrong.
There is at least a little empirical support for my second snarky opinion. The diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska is now famous for having the healthiest rate of priestly vocations in the United States. One of the assistants to the bishop there has been quite candid as to why he thinks this is the case: In that diocese the laity and the priests themselves are actively encouraged to believe that the priesthood is an elite class of people. Evidently you’re discouraged from even calling a priest by his first name.
A final comment: While I think there has been a sea change in what most Catholics believe since the 1960s, so far as I no officially nothing has changed. The CCC still declares that missing Mass on a holy day of obligation is a grave sin. And JP II reiterated the opinion that to be a priest, brother or nun is a better form of life than to be a layperson.
Hello Ken (and All),
“Knowing as we do that we Catholics are blessed to have been given the one, true faith, guarded by the Holy Spirit and passed down to us via the apostles and subsequent popes, it does beg the question; why has attendance at Mass and participation the sacraments and other aspects of parish life declined so much in the last 40 years?”
I think the fine way you have stated this question suggests an answer (that dovetails with my respose to David earlier – how’s that for shameless self-promotion?). I think that in our time, most of we Catholics in North America do not believe ours is the one, true faith. I think most of us believe that many different faith traditions, including some that are not Christian, teach their members enough of the Gospel (without necessarily referring directly to the Gospel) to be regarded as true faiths. I also think that most of we Catholics in our time don’t believe it’s a necessary condition for one’s salvation to attend Mass regularly and to receive certain sacraments.
I don’t mean to suggest your’s is the wrong view of the Roman Catholic faith. But if one does not believe that practicing Roman Catholics are specially privileged, then it raises the question, “Why be a practicing Catholic?”.
You might be on to something Peter. If folks do not belive Catholicism is sepcial, in the way I described it earlier. If they do not belive it is the one true faith, then of course they should opt out of it. After all, our nation is a free country.
However I do not understand why – if some folks decide to opt out of being a practicing Catholic, or if they decide to leave the Church altogether – all too often those same people are fond of saying “Oh yes, I was raised Catholic and I think . . .”, or “Yeah, I went to Catholic school, and let me tell you . . .” blah, blah; and on and on and on.
They start by giving their listeners the impression they are Catholic, and then proceed to rail relentlessly against the Church. If fact they are no more Catholic than our pet cat.
Yet they like to let on like somehow, they are Catholic and their opinion is that of a Catholic.
The worst and most shallow types of course are politicians like Nancy Pelosi and her ilk. They give public scandal by claiming to be Catholic and then promoting abortionists – talk about gawl!
Peter gives as evidence the ‘healthy’ number of vocations in Lincoln NE.This is being done by the branding of priests as ‘an elite class of people’. ‘And don’t call me by my first name’. Fr Joe is out I’ve heard. Replicate this throughout the 1st world..Look at the success of the Legionaries..????
I guess this attracts a certain class of men, Healthy ? Or is this just a cheap steal from the Marine ads ‘we need a few good men” etc… add an ontological receipe for differentiation…now we have a steal on branding and this is the Madison Ave answer to the acute decline of priests in the 1st world? Now let’s all ‘run it up the flag pole’ and watch em all come to the sems and salute…. meanwhile let get the foreign-born recruits from priest short countries and convince the complaining pew potatoes who can’t understand the homelies that these too are an elite class of people.. And you think Afganistan has a strategy problem?
Your shallow view of things notwithstanding Ed, this is an important matter; very much worhty of our thoughtful consideration.
“If fact they are no more Catholic than our pet cat.”
You baptized your cat?
Wow.
Who gets to decide if some ELSE is catholic enough?
I know I don’t get to make that decision.
I would suggest two reasons for any decline in Mass attendance and vocations since the mid sixties:
1. The institutional hierarchy’s rejection sensus fidelium regarding artificial contraception.
2. The institutional hierarchy’s evil failure to address the clergy sex abuse crisis for the past several hundred years.
Hello Ken (and All),
“They start by giving their listeners the impression they are Catholic, and then proceed to rail relentlessly against the Church. If fact they are no more Catholic than our pet cat.”
Actually, if I am not mistaken the people to whom you refer are Catholic according to canon law. But going back to David’s original post topic, of course one might doubt that the views of all these people should be counted as part of the sensus fidelium.
David–
There’s a subtle distinction between the 2 polling questions that you may have missed. The Quinnipiac poll asked, not whether one approved of the invitation, but whether it should be rescinded. I could see a significant number of people disapproving of the invitation, but thinking it’s not appropriate to be an Indian-giver and withdraw it once given. That probably explains the apparent difference in the outcomes.
It’s an odd way for Quinnipiac to have phrased the polling question, unless they wanted to push a certain answer. Nah, they’d never do that.
As for which Catholics are the “faithful” whose sense carries the most weight, would you prefer to be operated on by a brain surgeon who does surgery every week, or one who does it only twice a year?
This quote from John Hardon SJ suggests that “sensus fidelium” has an important element of “fidelity”, as in, faithful adherence to revealed truth.
“Those who believe, and insofar as they believe, are one community not only or mainly because they subjectively believe but because what they believe is objectively true, indeed is the Truth that became man and dwelled among us. Against this background, it is easier to see what universal agreement among the faithful must mean. They are faithful insofar as they are agreed on the truth, where the source of their agreement is not a semantic use of the name ‘Christian’ or ‘Catholic,’ but the deeply interior adherence to what God has revealed.
Consequently, whether they realize it or not, all who agree on the revealed truth, under the guidance of the sacred magisterium, belong to the faithful. Their agreement on the truth and allegiance to the magisterium gives them universality, i.e., spiritual unity. The truth interiorly possessed gives them consensus, and not the other way around, as though their consensus on some doctrine made it true.” (pp. 226-227).”
Hello Joe (and All),
“1. The institutional hierarchy’s rejection sensus fidelium regarding artificial contraception.”
I’ve suspected for some time that the reaffirmation of Church teaching against contraception in 1968 was the greatest contributing cause to the decline in the number of Catholics who practice their faith. Why? If as I’ve suggested above most Catholics starting in the 1960s no longer believe that Roman Catholicism is the only path to salvation, it makes sense (to me anyway) that most of these Catholics would not want to be held to standards of conduct different from those of other faith traditions, particularly the Protestant churches. I don’t know if anyone has tested this hypothesis statistically. It may be that we don’t have the relevant data.
But I think it’s not so clear-cut that the hierarchy has acted against the sensus fidelium regarding contraception. To play devil’s advocate, I’ll repeat what I read once in an issue of First Things (back when I still read that publication – I won’t anymore): The views of the large number of Catholics who believe that contraception is sometimes acceptable are simply proof these all these Catholics are not faithful and should not be counted as part of the sensus fidelium.
Like David I think it is by no means an easy question to answer: Which Catholics count here?
Again to play devil’s advocate, one will get a different causal story regarding the decline in the practice of the Catholic faith from other quarters: Catholics left in great numbers because the Second Vatican Council was hijacked by liberals who introduced innovations like guitars in Mass. (According to this story I would be one of the hijackers since I used to be a guitarist at Mass.)
“Who gets to decide if some ELSE is catholic enough?”
There are such people (think mitres and croziers), although we may devoutly wish that they make these decisions very sparingly.
” “1. The institutional hierarchy’s rejection sensus fidelium regarding artificial contraception.”
I’ve suspected for some time that the reaffirmation of Church teaching against contraception in 1968 was the greatest contributing cause to the decline in the number of Catholics who practice their faith. ”
Andrew Greeley, wearing his sociologist’s hat, would agree with this hypothesis, and has published some evidence in support of it.
As to who are the faithful Cathlics, I would suppose onl yGod really knows.
Some here would like to think THEY know.
I’d be careful, Ken, about characterizing others as shallow, by the way.
Hello All,
Sorry for the poor grammar in my last post.
Jim P. points us to an important quotation from John Hardon SJ. I think I agree with Jim’s reading of Fr. Hardon’s words here. Here’s my question: If Fr. Hardon’s account of sensus fidelium is correct, than what role does the sensus fidelium have in the Church? If it’s simply to be understood as “agreement on the truth and allegiance to the magisterium”, then why refer to it at all?
Maybe Fr. Hardon elaborates on this further in the work Jim quotes?
I’ve had a parallel puzzlement regarding the role of conscience. I have seen many times the claim that one can only act in good conscience when one’s conscience is well-formed, and well-formed means in conformity with the magisterium. Now I don’t mean to insinuate that anybody should not obey the magisterium, but if this is the right account of a well-formed conscience than it seems to me that conscience should do real work in one’s life. On this account of well-formed conscience, why refer to conscience at all?
Hello All,
Ooops, I goofed again. Here is what I should have written:
but if this is the right account of a well-formed conscience than it seems to me that conscience should do NO real work in one’s life.
The missing word in the previous post changes the meaning considerably!
I don’t know what the Mass attendance, or Sacramental participation is of anyone on this Blog, but you certainly all are caring honest Christians try to live the teachings of Jesus as best you know how, and trying to interpret them as honestly as you can. You are the sensus fidelium. You may have varied opinions, but that doesn’t matter. I believe anyone who approaches Jesus in this manner is part of the sensus fidelium.
Peter,
On the subject of conscience, I remembered this bit from a page on the subject – The Primacy of Conscience – from In Today’s News …..
“I’ll let the CCC’s brief summary stand on its own now.
IN BRIEF
1795 – “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths” (GS 16).
1796 – Conscience is a judgment of reason by which the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act.
1797 – For the man who has committed evil, the verdict of his conscience remains a pledge of conversion and of hope.
1798 – A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. Everyone must avail himself of the means to form his conscience.
1799 – Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
1800 – A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.
1801 – Conscience can remain in ignorance or make erroneous judgments. Such ignorance and errors are not always free of guilt.
1802 – The Word of God is a light for our path. We must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. This is how moral conscience is formed.
It should seem clear from all that is said that it would wrong to advise a person to disobey their conscience, even if obedience to conscience means disobedience to the Church.
I am 61, a veteran of 16 years of Catholic education, and I formally left the Church of Rome nearly 3 years ago because I could no longer in good conscience give my personal involvement or financial support to an institution being guided by a pope “hell bent” on taking the church backwards to a pre-Vatican II mentality and modus operandi.
I nonetheless told my pastor in writing that I was not renouncing my Catholic faith and that I did not anticipate joining any other relligious body. JPII “greased the skids” for my departure, and B16 merely “opened the gate” that sent me downhill out of the “fold.”
I still keep up with church matters by reading COMMONWEAL and NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER. I don’t place much stock in newspapers controlled by the bishops — perhaps because of their perceived lack of credibility, not to mention their tendency to behave as “lackeys” of the Vatican and afraid to act like genuine local church leaders.
If a future pope were to undo the crap foisted on the church by JPII and B16 and put it back on the Vatican II track, I likely would reinstate my formal membership and resume participation and monetary contributions.
For now, I describe myself as Catholic in faith, not by affiliation.
First off, thanks for many of the comments here. Peter V, and I liked Jim P’s citation from Hardon–not that it really clarifies anything empirically much less politically, but that’s fine. And thank you Andrew Savarese–I think that’s the best possible answer.
Ken, I’d prefer directly from your cat, as he/she might consider herself/himself Catholic and might not hiss quite as much as you can.
Mark Proska, regarding the polling, I saw the different phrasings of the questions, but I don’t think they would be that relevant to the outcome. In any case, that doesn’t explain the lacuna in the Pew poll, or the relevance of the arbitrary “weekly attender” category.
Do I contribute to the “sense of the faithful?”
I don’t know. It may be a matter of somebody else’s perception.
But I still speak out on Catholic Church issues because I care — at least for now and the foreseeable future!
It seems to me that it is impossible to say what the sense of rhe faithful is because we have no means of knowing what all Catholics believe.
Take a poll? We’ve seen how well that works. And the views of most who called themselves Catholic are lost to history. Further, we don t really know who who the real Catholics were (thecomes who believed slavery was OK, for instance?) So eho should have been asked?
Ask the Pope? The Pope himself can’t tpruly ever be sure that he is judging the Holy Spirit’s intentions correctly because the Pope knows that popes (and that includedhim! can be wrong. he could be wrong about being infallible.
It seems the Holy Spirit hasn’t promised us absolute certainty on this Earth. Sigh.
Lots of different directions here:
Fom Gaudium et Spes on Conscience: “Deep within their consciences men and women discover a law that they have not laid upon themselves but which they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and to avoid what is evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that! For they have in their hearts a law inscribed by God. Their dignity lies in observing that law, and by it they will be judged…….through loyalty to conscience Christans are joined to others in search for truth and for the right solution to so many moral problems that arise both in the lives of individuals and in social relationships.”
There is a fundamental difference between “religion” and “faith”…..if you have internalized James Fowler’s Stages of Faith…..you see distinctions between various stages of faith development. In fact, you can have a weekly or daily church attendee who is emotionall, psychologically, and maturally at the equavilent stage of a child blindly following orders/rules – not out of faith but out of fear, guilt, etc. So, using measures such as attendance, etc. are misguided at best in trying to determine the “sensus fidelium”
In John O’Malley’s “What Happened at Vatican II”, he outlines the bishops struggle to define the sensus fidelium. Again, he avoids labels such as conservative/liberal and makes two significant points – a) Vatican II was based upon three underlying currents consisting of ressourcement, development, and aggiornamento; b) Vatican II’s style/tone imbued all 16 documents and was an example of ressourcement – a turn away from dogmatic rules, commands, regulations, condemnations, anathemas, static, passive acceptance, fault-finding, perscriptive and to the first century church’s call, invitation,ideals, mystery, persuasion, conscience, dialogue, servant model, partnership, trust,evolving, principles, inner appropriation, and vision of a collegial community of believers.
Unfortunately, these two initiatives played out in a very large dynamic – between the “periphery” (local & national conferences of bishops) and the “center” (curia/Rome). Even before Vatican II was over, it failed to restructure the church leaving the “center” in place with 16 documents that spoke about collegiality, openness, etc. Paul VI never made a decisive decision for either the periphery or the center and so the structure (which never changed) reasserted itself and never fully implemented the council’s initiatives. Example – as stated above, Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the 19th century Vatican I and subsequent popes’ decisions with the full backing of the “center” – collegiality and the conferences were left out. This was a reversal to the sensus fidelium – it redefined peoples’ understanding. Subsequently, JPII and now B16, synods, etc. have stripped the sensus fidelium of its energy, direction, and growth.
Hello Ann (and All),
“It seems to me that it is impossible to say what the sense of the faithful is because we have no means of knowing what all Catholics believe.”
I wonder, throughout the centuries have we ever known what all Catholics believe? Upon reflecting on some of the responses here, I think the best answer to the question “Which Catholics count?” is all Catholics, including those who are in imperfect communion with the Roman Catholic Church as are some of us here. Otherwise, as I suggested above, I think the sensus fidelium does no work for the Church. That does not mean that everyone’s particular beliefs are of equal value, but I think it does mean that all Catholics contribute to the sensus fidelium in some manner (though I admit I don’t know how to be more specific about this. I wouldn’t want people to think that Nancy Pelosi’s views on abortion define what Catholics believe about abortion, and by the same token I wouldn’t want people to think that Mel Gibson’s views on Vatican II define what Catholics believe about the council. But much as I may disagree with Gibson and Pelosi on certain specifics, they are still fellow Catholics and so I think somehow they are contributing to the sensus fidelium). But your question remains. I wonder, could it be the case that the sensus fidelium works primarily at a very local level, say at the parish level? In such contexts, Catholics might know and learn from what their fellow Catholics in these smaller communities believe. Maybe that is enough for the sensus fidelium to do its work?
Thanks, again, to Bill DeHaas for those references, and to Peter V…Picking up on these last couple of comments, a couple of observations:
To define the sensus fidelium we probably ought to ask what it is for…I do think there is a sense (so to speak) that the sensus fidelium is part of the work of the Spirit in guiding and developing the church through history. That means it is a “factor” (a crude way of putting it, but so be it) in deliberations about the church’s development. That requires us to think about how and whether the church “changes,” develops.
It also requires us to think about how that factor is considered. I forget the details, but didn’t Pius IX poll all the world’s bishops before proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception? I can’t imagine any of them objecting, and I don’t think many, if any, did.
As silly as that exercise may sound to modern(ist) ears, Pius and the bishops of the time were perhaps reflecting the sensus fidelium, in that they were affirming a belief widely held.
That may get to another useful way to think about the SF (I’m tired of writing “sensus fidelium!)–more the way saints used to be proclaimed, as a result of grassroots local devotion. A bottom-up (sorry for the hierarchical dynamic) process rather than a top-down delivery system. Thus it is more organic, and unpredictable, than we might like. And it is more located in practice and participation. Maybe.
Not sure if I grasp all the details in this discussion, but does the individual decide if he’s Catholic? Or Church teaching? Or members of the Church hierarchy? Or Ken?
I haven’t been to Mass for a long time for reasons not relevant here, but I was reminded by one of the Church Ladies (in a very nice way) that the Church still expects me to fulfill the obligations I contracted when I converted. Ergo, the Church still seems to consider me Catholic, albeit a very poor one, even though I’m more likely to attend evening prayer and Ash Wednesday with the Episcopalians than go to Mass.
I always assumed there was a seven-year rule at which point the Church considered you officially out.
However, a neighbor baptized Catholic as an infant but whose parents never took him to Church afterward entered the RCIA program a year after his wife, a Protestant, converted. Mr. Neighbor was apparently “Catholic enough” for the Church to require him to have his marriage regularized or blessed (wasn’t clear on how that worked) because he and his wife, a Catholic convert, had been married in a Protestant church. Whereas Protestant couples married in Protestant churches were accepted as converts in valid marriages.
Practically speaking, however, I think it makes sense to consider the faithful and observant as those who attend Mass regularly, accept and do their best to live the teachings of the Church, and fulfill, at minimum, their yearly Easter obligation.
Whether these people actually should be speaking FOR the Church is moot. A faithful and observant woman in our town proclaims from her car bumper that ‘There are no Catholics for Obama.” Something that Raber, who is an equally faithful and observant Catholic, wants to rip off there every time he sees it.
I do speak OF the Church with people sometimes, like here, but I would no more have the “gawl” to speak FOR the Church or even as a Catholic than Ken’s now-famous pet cat.
I am out of my depth here, but why should that stop me? If you take Noonan’s observations about papal condemnations of usury (lending money and charging interest) as a case of the triumph of sensus fidelium over the authority of the hierarchy, then perhaps you can only judge the working of sensus fidelium in retrospect. At the time the Church was condemning usury, it would have been impossible to take a poll of all faithful Catholics and deduce the “real” position of the Church. Only after the tension between the faithful and the hierarchy had been resolved in favor of usury was it possible to look back and see the role of sensum fidelium. Sensum fidelium would be something akin to the intellectual, social, and economic forces that determine which painters and which writers are great. It’s a matter of what endures and what continues to speak to subsequent generations.
Mr. Gibson – realize that blogs are not the place for in-depth research, etc. but would suggest that it would be helpful if folks such as Fr. K or John O’Malley,SJ could suggest any historical studies on the history and evolution of the church’s understanding of the “sensus fidelium”?
Using old time knowledge, the church references tradition (magisterium), scripture, and the sensus fidelium (sort of a three legged stool) as the guiding force for Church understanding.
No expert (wife, job, + kids don’t leave me much time to do primary/secondary research into subjects such as “sensus fidelium”) but it appears that the history of the church since Trent involves a pendulum that swings from scripture, to magisterium, to sensus fidelim – sometimes you find all three, sometimes one or two. Examples – Vatican I – dogma on infallibility – seems to give most weight to tradition understood as centralized authority (impacts efforts towards ecumenism, collegiality, religious freedom, East-West relations, etc.), subsequently two dogmas on Mary – appear to be examples that demonstrate infallibility that cites the sensus fidelium as supportive. Yet, there is little scriptural evidence for any of these three; the sensus fidelium prior to Vatican II was not based on good scriptural education, was driven more by piety, etc.
So, what you get in trying to define “sensus fidelium” is a complex, at times contradictory history.
For what it is worth?
David, with all due Respect, if this statement were true, “You may have varied opinions but that does not matter”, then there would be no sensus fidelium to begin with. There is only one Truth of Love. “I Am THE TRUTH”-Christ
P.S., regarding matters of Faith, to “Walk in The Spirit”, is to choose Life.
Nancy,
Jesus did not say, “I Am THE TRUTH.”
Hello Bill (and All),
“Using old time knowledge, the church references tradition (magisterium), scripture, and the sensus fidelium (sort of a three legged stool) as the guiding force for Church understanding.”
I know you are busy, but I’d appreciate an authoritative reference if you know of one. (I don’t know where to look in the CCC or the documents of Vatican II, assuming these documents state this, shame on me!) I’ve heard repeatedly (from sources I’ll admit I am not certain regarding their reliability) that the three legs of the stool are scripture, tradition and magisterium, and I don’t think that by tradition these sources mean sensus fidelium. I’d just like to be set straight.
Didn’t we just have a Sunday Gospel reading about the apostles arguing about who among them was the most important? Isn’t that kind of what we are doing here? That is, arguing about who is the most Catholic among us or, worse, who is Catholic enough?
I know that I am on dangerous ground here having only recently received the sacraments of initiation and as a new convert I don’t have the life time of experience in the church that most readers here have. I gently suggest, though, that the thing that makes us uniquely Catholic is our belief in the Real Presence. It was a miracle of the Real Presence that brought me into the church and it is the Real Presence that makes it impossible for me to go anywhere else.
“Simon Peter answered him, ‘Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’” – John 6:68-69
Anyone who in their hearts believes in the Real Presence is my faithful Catholic brother or sister. Full stop.
Of course, we can each choose to fall out of communion with our brothers and sisters. But, that doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit stops working in us. In some ways I am almost more interested in the opinions and journeys of those who authentically struggle with full communion as opposed to those who sit next to me on Sundays because I know that they are burning with the Holy Spirit.
There are many reasons why church attendance and vocations are declining. It seems to me that the most dangerous of those reasons is our very human desire to set up controlling, dualistic us/them designations, to borrow an idea from Fr. Richard Rohr. We all have at some point waived the catechism in our brother’s faith like some modern day pharisee and screamed, “You are not welcome!” Nothing good can come from that.
It was a belief that some of my secular opinions made me not welcome that kept me from recognizing Christ’s love for me for over 40 years. And it is that belief that drove my father out of the church and keeps him out. What a tragedy!
All of this is not to say that we aren’t debating some critically important issues. We are. And we need to challenge each other to live up to our shared values. As a Catholic, action must accompany faith. Somewhere along the way, though, we forgot that we were debating with brothers and sisters and lost our civility. We blamed everyone but ourselves: “It was Vatican II!” “It was Traditionalists!”
No. It was us.
The only question now is, what are we going to do about it?
Hello David (and All),
“Sensum fidelium would be something akin to the intellectual, social, and economic forces that determine which painters and which writers are great. It’s a matter of what endures and what continues to speak to subsequent generations.”
I think that’s a very interesting view.
As it happens I am currently researching the development of natural law. Noonan’s book in an invaluable resource, though in the end he is somewhat sketchy in his analysis of why Church moral teaching, which is explicitly based upon the classical natural law, sometimes develops. If I read Noonan correctly, the process, which may take centuries, starts with the sensus fidelium and culminates with the magisterium making a final teaching.
But do any of the developments Noonan discusses, such as the ban on slavery, religious freedom and the permission of interest charging, count as progress? Noonan seems to assume these changes are instances of progress but I don’t think he explains clearly why. (Some of our moderators know Noonan’s work in far greater depth than do I so I will be glad to be corrected if I’m selling him short.) None of the leading classical natural law theorists I know of make any attempt to analyze the process of development, although some of them tacitly admit there have been developments. I’ve only been thinking about this for a short time, but I think I detect a common thread in these developments, in that they (1) allow us greater liberties and/or (2) require us to treat each other more equally, and if there’s a possibility of conflict between more liberty and refraining from exploiting others, (2) has priority over (1). Maybe that’s what defines progress?
This might require a new thread, but I’d like to know what you and other participants here think about the possibility of progress in Church moral teaching.
Peter -like you, I also remember that but it has changed over the years. When I can recall my Rahner studies, ecclisiology classes, etc. there seems to be some debate around these complex categories.
Suffice it to say that Vatican II seemed to lay the groundwork for an understanding that it starts with Jesus; then early church experience; captured in scripture; and then the tradition of the church evolved, developed, changed, and grew in terms of its understanding, expressions of, and living out the faith in Jesus. Somewhere in this “tradition” based on scripture, magisterium became a part of tradition. If I tried to map this on a board, it would be concentric circles with Jesus in the center; lived exerience; then scripture, then tradition; then magisterium. What confuses this is that these are not independent siloes but cross over each other, cross-polinate each other. Somewhere in this you have the slow growth of the sensus fidelium which is not simplistically separated from clerics/laity – this is the work of the spirit in all aspects of the church – lay, clergy, hierarchy, etc.
Sorry – this probably sounds confusing but is not meant to be. Possibly Fr. K can weigh in and clarify my fuzziness, bad memory, or just plain inaccuracies because I slept through a class now and then.
There are many reasons why church attendance and vocations are declining. It seems to me that the most dangerous of those reasons is our very human desire to set up controlling, dualistic us/them designations . . .
Tom,
Actually, I think that in the “good old days” before Vatican II (which is not necessarily to say that Vatican II brought the good old days to an end or, for that matter, to say that the old days were necessarily good) there was a great feeling of “us versus them.” However, the “us” was Catholics and the “them” was non-Catholics. (My father, a Protestant, always was irked by Catholics dividing the world into Catholics and non-Catholics.) You weren’t allowed to attend a wedding or other religious service in a non-Catholic church without permission. If there was a dance at your Catholic high school and you wanted to bring someone from another school, he or she had to have a CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) card. NO PROTESTANTS ALLOWED! It was always of great interest if celebrities were Catholic. (“Oh, Perry Como is a Catholic, you know.”) We weren’t allowed to read the “Protestant” Bibles. My father had a copy of the RSV, and I was not supposed to look at it.
Then some time in the 1960s, as I think Peter Vanderschraaf is pointing out, that feeling that being a Catholic was unique and special began rapidly to disappear, and many Catholics didn’t feel they belonged to the “one true Church.”
I remember a fellow Catholic reacting with alarm to the relaxation of the prohibition of eating meat on Friday and saying, “We’re become just like the Protestants!”
Of course, Vatican II did not change anything that made Catholics Catholic, but perhaps it changed a lot of things that made Catholics feel they were set apart from non-Catholics.
“that feeling that being a Catholic was unique and special began rapidly to disappear, and many Catholics didn’t feel they belonged to the “one true Church.” … Of course, Vatican II did not change anything that made Catholics Catholic, but perhaps it changed a lot of things that made Catholics feel they were set apart from non-Catholics.”
I’m sure you’re right, David. At the same time, when we reflect on the gifts of the 2nd Vatican Council, ecumenicism has to be at or near the top of the list. And I think most Catholics would agree that ecumenicism is a good thing.
An excellent way to define something is to say what group it resembles (genus) and what sets it apart from the rest of that group (species). I suppose that, by superceding the counter-Reformation-rooted notion that we’re both different and better than Protestants, we’ve blurred the definition of Catholic identity.
As it happens, there is a group, at least in the developed world, with whom we can contrast ourselves – and whom we should be figuring out how to evangelize: people who live wholly secular lives. So if we need an “other” to sharply define who are are and what our mission is, istm that’s the “other” we’ve been given.
“I gently suggest, though, that the thing that makes us uniquely Catholic is our belief in the Real Presence.”
Hi, Tom, I agree that our belief in the Real Presence is very important, but it’s not actually unique to Catholicism. Certainly our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox communion affirm Real Presence (although they may not formulate it as we have in the West).
Hello David (and All),
“Actually, I think that in the “good old days” before Vatican II (which is not necessarily to say that Vatican II brought the good old days to an end or, for that matter, to say that the old days were necessarily good) there was a great feeling of “us versus them.”
To add to your response to Tom, I think you are spot on. Lisa Cahill, a theologian and friend who works at Boston College and who grew up in the years before Vatican II, has some interesting reflections on those years and says in those days she felt like being Catholic was being in a secret society.
I’m only an amateur historian, but from my reading I think that starting in 1648 (end of the Thirty Years War) the Roman Catholic Church adopted a policy of “no acknowledgement-mimimize contact” towards Protestants that ended quite suddenly with Vatican II. All of a sudden, the Protestants we had been encouraged to leave alone became our separated brethren. And on top of this, the documents of Vatican II said such nice things about people of the Jewish, Muslim and other non-Christian religions. So I think many of we Catholics concluded, “Maybe we aren’t God’s favorite people, after all.”. Tom mentions Fr. Rohr, who quite openly states in his talks that he believes we Catholics are not privileged in the way that most of us thought we were before the 1960s. (Not surprisingly, some more traditionally minded Catholics despise Fr. Rohr.)
For my own part, I don’t think I could have stayed in the Roman Catholic Church if the Church had not changed the “us versus them”. Maybe it makes me a bad Catholic, but one of the reasons I have real doubts about all the reported Marian apparitions, even those the Church has declared worthy of belief, is that they are always reported as witnessed exclusively by Roman Catholics, as if we Roman catholics were the only people worthy of a visitation from the Blessed Mother.
“Jesus did not say ‘I am The Truth’.”
David N, according to the sensus fidelium, Jesus did say “I am The Truth”.
Hi Peter
Since you asked, here are two books that I think are both readable and reliable. Both are by Francis A. Sullivan SJ. He taught ecclesiology for thirty five years at the Gregorian University. One simply is called Magisterium and the other Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting the Documents of the Magisterium. I think you will find both of them helpful. He is also the author of From Apostles to Bishops, which I have not read yet, but mean to.
Peter, the Church references the trinitarian relationship of Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and The Teaching of the Magisterium:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm
>Certainly our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox communion affirm Real Presence >(although they may not formulate it as we have in the West).
Hi Jim,
And they have, at best, real divisions about accepting catechumens (assuming they even do!) so for me there really was only one place that I could go.
David N, according to the sensus fidelium, Jesus did say “I am The Truth”.
Nancy,
Perhaps you are thinking of the nonsensus fidelium.
“Perhaps you are thinking of the nonsensus fidelium.”
David, the nonsensus fidelium is limited to that which is NOT Truth. :-)
Peter asked for a magisterial source for sensus fidelium. Here is what Lumen Gentium says in paragraph 12, in the section entitled “The People of God”:
“The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One,(111) cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of faith when “from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful” (8*) they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God.(112) Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints,(113) penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.”
So, a couple of final comments from me:
There is an understandable temptation to locate the sensus fidelium in the laity, and conceive of it as a sort of counter-balance to the bishops (as the federal government, for example, has a separation of powers). I believe that is erroneous for a couple of reasons: (1) the sensus fidelium is not unique to the laity, although the laity most certainly shares in it; *all* the faithful, regardless of their state in life, share in it. (2) It is not a power thing. It is a *gift* of the Holy Spirit, a gift of inerrancy in matters of faith and morals. That is a tremendous thing, for which we ought to give great thanks and praise to God; but inerrancy in perceiving the truth is not the same sort of thing as having the authority to interpret the truth. That authority resides with the bishops.
I’ve been a proud member of the nonsensus flagellium for as long as I can remember!
I think the strength (an limitation) of the Catholic tradition is the concept of sensus fidelium which implies the truth is grasped through a collective grappling with issues and through vigorous, mutual exploration and obedience. I am not sure that Catholics necessary believe that anymore.
I think our age is highly characterized by an individualism, or at best sub-cultures which the Church is having a difficult time grappling with. In our Catholic community we have clear, identifiable groupings of communities that are basically self-selected. It doesn’t take reams of research to figure out where the in the USA the Republicans would target to find sympathetic ears and where the Democrats would. Carl Rove knew EXACTLY where – and to whom – to go. David Axelord knew EXACTLY where – and to whom to go.
I characterize myself as a political independent (which admittedly is code for tipping to the libertarian side of economic and social questions).
The point is that people have choice and they now exercise that choice in ways they couldn’t imagine one or two hundred years ago. Charles Taylor discusses this entire dynamic in the Secular Age.
I agree that to find out what characterizes Christianity that a serious, reflective person who takes their faith seriously would yield better results than someone who approaches it in a perfunctory way. However, I don’t think that church attendance is necessarily an accurate gauge for discerning seriousness. As Emily Dickinson wryly wrote, “Some keep the Sabbath going to church; I keep it staying at home….” The important point is that she KEEPS it.
As an aside, I think that the loss of individual acts of piety (adoration, stations, etc.) has been a loss for the mystical development of the INDIVIDUAL within the collective community.
Clearly the magisterium and popes have made serious errors. Sensus fidelium is an unfortunate term unless you are talking about the beatitudes and the fact that the first shall be last. Juan Dieogo (did I spell that right) of Guadalupe fame did not exist. Humanae Vitae talked about keeping continuous doctrine which only started with Pius XI. Humanae Vitae is clearly in error. The so called sensus fidelium stressed for centuries that the Jews were not worthy of existence. Notice that contraception is trumpeted very rarely and when done most of the bishops avoid the subject.
Jesus said it so clearly. Who ever does the will of God is my sister, mother and brother. It is action not belief that it is the issue. We will be judged by our actions not our dogma.
When Jesus established criteria it was Matt; 25:31-46. Maybe we need a litttle child in our midst to explain it all.
Hello Bill (and All),
“Clearly the magisterium and popes have made serious errors.”
We can point to clear examples, but do we have some sort of criterion for knowing when the magisterium and/or certain popes have made mistakes? Here’s an example from philosophy: Aquinas argues that our knowledge of secondary principles of the natural law can sometimes be faulty, and then goes on to prove his point by arguing that heretics should receive capital punishment. But why in retrospect are we so sure Aquinas was mistaken about religious freedom (which he was)?
“Juan Dieogo (did I spell that right) of Guadalupe fame did not exist.”
I’ve always thought that Juan Diego certainly existed. Are the historians who argue he didn’t? I’m asking seriously because I was instructed by a priest recently to learn more about the Guadalupe phenomenon.
“Notice that contraception is trumpeted very rarely and when done most of the bishops avoid the subject.”
I think it depends on where the trumpets are blowing. I know of TV programs and magazines where they talk about the evils of contraception incessantly. Some of the bishops in this country are pretty vocal on the subject as well. I obey Church teaching and abstain from contraception in my marriage myself, but I try these days to avoid these programs and publications because I’m really tired of the subject.
Hello again Bill,
I apologize, I missed the last sentence in your post earlier, which might serve as an answer to the question I have been posting about today. I will take another look at Matthew 25:31-46 .
If you read LG 12, as Jim Pauwels suggested, continue on to paragraphs 13-17. “All men are called to belong to the new people of God” begins 13, and the following paragraphs effectively demolish the boundaries between “us and them”. It cannot be a matter of “only Catholics are saved” but that Christ died to save us, and everyone else. We cannot define an us vs them, whether by baptism or attendance at church, without doing an injustice to the breadth of God’s love.
As long as I am at it, Dei Verbum talks about tradition scripture and magisterium as interlinked realities that mediate revelation. This needs to be read in the context of the earlier definition of tradition: “what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.”
We hand on all that we are. Sensus fidelium lies in what we are, what we give, and what is received. It lies in the love that forms us and inspires us to give and to receive. Love is the determinant for the SF, and we are notoriously bad judges of love. It cannot be quantified or measured, and it fools all of our efforts to be certain. At a certain level, we trust the magisterium not because we know that they are right, but because we know that holding together is at the core of love.
Tom, your answer is terrific. It is heartening to see that someone who is new to the Church show signs of being well catechized and can express our faith so clearly.
My one quibble is that what distinguishes us is not our belief in the Real Presence of Christ. The Real Presence of Christ is what distinguishes us. It is not that Christ is really present only in our visible communities, but that wherever Christ is really present, the Church is there. As long as the Church is a creation of God, we have to rely on God to show us the boundaries. And even when the boundaries are revealed, I am sure we will still argue about them.
Peter –
When theology is viewed as the sacred science, it is quite reasonable to view deductions from its axioms as developments of doctrine. But the trouble with that view of theology, I think, is that much if theological predication is only by analogy, and I don’t know of a logoc system that can handle metaphors. Hmm. Does this imply that much of theology is just poetry? Was Dante a theologian?
Peter –
Not all sections in the cointry were as strict as others about associating with non-Catholics. A couple of siblings of my grandfather married Protestants, and the second marriage of one of his grandmothers was to a Jew (1840s?) American Catholicism isn’t quite the monolith some think.
Peter – it is Juan Diego. One of the most recent historical studies on the apparition of Teyepac – La Virgen de Guadalupe – is by one of my old college history professors, Rev. Stafford Poole, CM.
The book is: “The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico” – 2006….here is a link: http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=8437
Summary: The tradition of Our Lady of Guadalupe of Mexico is one of history’s greatest examples of the fusion of religious devotion and national identity. For more than three centuries it has united a people who have often been divided. Given the universality of the devotion, not just in Mexico but throughout the Catholic world, it is surprising to know that from the beginning the story of the Virgin Mary’s appearances to the neophyte Indian Juan Diego has been the object of bitter controversy. In the late nineteenth century this centered on the authenticity of the tradition, sparked in part by the famous letter of the great Mexican historian Joaquín García Icazbalceta to the archbishop of Mexico, in which he listed his arguments against the tradition. From 1980 until 2002 the controversy centered on the canonization of Juan Diego and the doubts about his historical existence. The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico is the first comprehensive history of this interesting yet relatively unknown facet of Mexican social and religious history.
Hello Jim (and All),
Thanks for the Lumen Gentium reference. I have marked the passage you pointed us to in my translation, which is slightly different from yours. I think the key sentence in the passage is (from my translation, also in the passage you quoted for us above):
“It shows this characteristic through the entire people’s supernatural sense of the faith, when, “from the bishops to the last of the faithful” [quoting St. Augustine], it manifests a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals.”
Now I hate to be a pain in the rear to all here (but we philosophy professors are pretty good at being just that), but without more elaboration I think we are back to the beginning. If by “the entire people’s supernatural sense” the council fathers are referring to all of the people of God, then it’s not so clear to me when we ever have universal consensus among us. Even if we restrict “the entire people” to all baptized Roman Catholics who attend Mass regularly (one of the realier proposed definitions) we can still have trouble. Take a question one would think is entirely uncontroversial, namely, the Church’s now explicit condemnation of slavery, stated so eloquently in Gaudium Et Spes paragraph 27. I think it’s fair to say both that the Church now condemns slavery without qualification and that the sensus fidelium contributed to this teaching ultimately becoming authoritative. But many of us here have had sometimes heated discussions with “holdout” Catholics who insist the Church does not condemn slavery without qualification, but only certain forms of slavery they claim the Church has always condemned. So have we failed to reach universal consensus, or do the views of those I am labeling “holdouts” not count?
Anyway this is such an interesting topic David G. has introduced for us I may have trouble getting more work done this weekend!
Peter, it is always a pleasure to engage you. You show all of us how to disagree agreeably. Which I hope to do now. When the magisterium and bishops condemn, persecute outlaw Jews for centuries how can one doubt how error filled they are on this point. Followers, of him who demanded that we love our enemies, spewed venom towards the people of Jesus for centuries. It took the holocaust for us to see what evil christendom has wrought on the Jews. Augustine was right up there with such contempt when he wrote about the Jews: “they have become our librarians like slaves who carry their books behind their masters.” Even in our day Catholic apolgists justifed the persecution of Jews as a just punishment of God.
Where is their room for doubt about the seriously flawed sexual teaching of the magisterium? Even John Paul II wrote that a husband could sin by lusting against this wife. Apologists have tried to deny this but it shows continuity in a very flawed area of the magisterium. Humanae Vitae is more of a problem of authority rather than sexuality morality. The problem was the encyclical Casti Connubi which was barely thirty years old. But popes were never that concerned about overturning what other popes did before that. And what about the calumny hierarchs have committed over Mary Magdalene?
Serious historians question whether Diego ever existed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Diego. But that did not stop John Paul II from canonizing him.
I presume you are talking about EWTN when you cite TV programs who condemn contraception incessantly. There are some bishops. But they clearly do not represent the vast majority of Catholics. But if the faithful are the few Catholics who practice contraception then those who state that should throw everyone who disagrees out. Even Augustine wouldn’t buy that.
The real point, Peter, is following Jesus and and not exalting orthodoxy over orthopraxy.
Orthopraxy is what Jesus is all about.
Bill M., maybe this will help restore your Faith:
http://www.ignatius.com/the-13th-day/
Hello Bill (and All),
“I presume you are talking about EWTN when you cite TV programs who condemn contraception incessantly.”
That’s right. I used to view EWTN because I thought it might make me more sympathetic to the more conservative side of Catholicism, but in fact it had the opposite effect so I try to avoid it these days. But EWTN is a case study directly relevant to our thread here. The hosts of the programs on EWTN are quite candid in their view that the Roman Catholic Church is divided between the faithful Catholics and those who are Catholic in name only. For them plainly some are “in” and all of the rest are “out”. Their litmus test for who’s a faithful Catholic appears to be whether or not one supports Church teaching regarding contraception. I don’t know how they reconcile this with some of their occasional claims on the air that torture is not intrinsically evil and that the second Gulf War is a just war, despite what Vatican II and John Paul II taught.
I think this also touches upon Tom’s fine post from yesterday. I don’t fully understand how the sensus fidelium works for the Church, but I think in order for it to do any work at all we can’t draw sharp lines between which Catholics and “in” and which are “out”. I think Jim P. is also right when he notes that we should not regard the sensus fidelium as a check on the power of the hierarchy. The hierarchy have to be contributors to the sensus fidelium, same as the laity. But the EWTN hosts would disagree with me. Perhaps Pope Benedict would, too, since he occasionally refers to the possibility that only a “faithful remnant” of Catholics will remain in the Church. And he’s a great theologian, not to mention he is the current Pope. So maybe I need to rethink.
Hello Again Bill (and All),
“Serious historians question whether Diego ever existed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Diego. But that did not stop John Paul II from canonizing him.”
I’m finding this and the other leads I’ve been given here rather unsettling. I guess I’m inclined to view John Paul II’s canonization of Blessed Juan Diego as a gesture of love towards the people of Mexico, given that it’s beyond dispute that the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is so important to their national identity and had such a profound effect on the spread of Christianity in North America.
But on the subject of canonizations (which I realize is tangential to this thread), I admit sometimes I am irked that Mary Faustina Kowalska has been canonized but Dorothy Day hasn’t. Could be a sign that I need to become a better Catholic, since Saint Faustina’s devotion has become such an important part of life in the Church.
Peter – your context and comments about Juan Diego are too the point. Poole may have drawn an accurate, factual history of this event but, on the other hand, the event was larger than any one person in history. Juan Diego gave voice to the Mexican indigenous peoples and from Mexico, it travled to the indigenous peoples of Central, South, and North America.
Virgilio Elizondo, priest of San Antonio, but professor of theology currently at Notre Dame has written numerous books on the events around La Virgen de Guadalupe – his theological insights on these events can be concisely summarized as a message to the Spanish instiutional church (bishop of Mesico City) who at that point treated native, indigenous folks the same as the Spanish military conqueror. The message was to the hierarchy/power to preach/live the gospel to all peoples – that indigenous folks have a dignity, cultures, etc. that need to be respected.
In many ways, Elizondo extends this event and names La Virgen de Guadalupe as the Mary for the Americas – she empowered the lowly, the oppressed, the poor.
We can quibble about the canonization of a figure that may or may not have been historical but then we miss the point. There have been many saints in the church whose actual history is not really known or, if it was, may not be what we imagined. Yet, the act of canonization seals the “sensus fidelim” of that nation, culture, regiona, people.
Peter –
i never had any devotion at all to Mary untill I saw the great image of her at her shrine at Guadalupe. It thoroughly overwhelmed me. Maybe there wasn’t a boy named Juan Diego, the subject of that story. But there was obviously somebody very, very alive who was granted the tremendous intuition reflected in that portrait — that Mary is the loving mother of ALL– and that person, I do not doubt, was the person canonized. So I think that controversy is irrelevant to the truth of faith, if not to the whole truth of history.
There certainly is a phenomenon to Guadalupe and Santiago. Yet Mary is practically unheard of in the first three centuries and the Santiago legend is quite bellicose to say the least. Not to mention churches charging as pilgrims make their way on the Santiago journey.
The whole issue of holy persons appears to be a fourth century and subsequent phenomenon. I mean they canonized a guy who sat on a flagpole. And Athanasius truly exploited the Anthony story. Vatican II reinstated that all are called to holiness and that all are equal in the church as Paul insisted.
Certainly the Spanish Institutional church needed to be taught a lesson. Yet what kind of solid religion continued the oppression of the peoples of South America. Jesus is foremost for the oppressed and downtrodden. But we might be wary seeing politics as a reason for making saints and legends.
Regarding the Sensus Fidelium, in order to be part of the Voice of the Faithful, one must believe in The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ to begin with.
Hello Bill (and All),
“Yet Mary is practically unheard of in the first three centuries and the Santiago legend is quite bellicose to say the least. Not to mention churches charging as pilgrims make their way on the Santiago journey.”
I wonder if devotion to Mary and the Marion dogmas might be some of the best examples of the sensus fidelium at work. For example, Pius IX formally defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, conforming a belief that many Catholics had held for centuries. But not all the Catholics, for no less a figure than Thomas Aquinas argued against the Immaculate Conception dogma in the 13th century. But anyway it looks like the sensus fidelium contributed towards the ultimate definition of this dogma. Maybe by the 19th century we Catholics had reached the cnsensus spoken of in Lumen Gentium.
On the other hand, the so-called 5th dogma that Mary is Co-Redemptrix has not been defined a dogma and I suspect it will not be in our lifetimes, even though John Paul II is alleged to have believed in the “5th dogma” and I’ve even heard rumors that he considered defining this as dogma and was advised not to by none other than now Pope Benedict. It’s my understanding that Catholics are permitted to believe in the Co-Redemptrix thesis but are not obligated to believe it. And I suspect that this has not been defined a dogma because we Catholics are nowhere near a consensus on this question. (I certainly don’t believe in this thesis, and I know many other Catholics who don’t and many who do.)
I think questions of Marian apparitions and the associated devotions are far more complicated. These are not part of the deposit of faith, but some of them are so widely believed in that I think one could make a case that at least some of them are supported by the sensus fidelium. And I’m saying that as one who has already admitted here that I am skeptical of reported Marian apparitions and the claims associated with these apparitions, which may make me less than an ideal Catholic.
Anyway, I guess maybe this confirms there is no easy answer to David G.’s original question.
Peter,
I agree with Thomas. The best book on Mary IMHO is “Truly Our Sister” by Elizabeth Johnson. Mary was a hard working peasant who was privileged to be the mother of Jesus. Her reality has been butchered throughout the years along with the silencing of women. Sensus fidelium has been a way that many have used power for selfish and opportunistic ends. Certainlay the hierarchy wants nothing to do with the letter of St James in today’s gospel since they insist on living richly and catering to the wealthy. They explain it by saying they have to live according to their status. While they preach Jesus Crucified?
We have more important things to do than go down that treacherous road of using phrasing for our own ends.
Hello Bill (and All),
Thanks for the Elizabeth Johnson reference.
“We have more important things to do than go down that treacherous road of using phrasing for our own ends.”
If I’m reading you correctly then you and I may be in at least partial agreement.I have always had an adamant “hands off” attitude towards certain beliefs that are not dogmas about the Blessed Mother and the associated devotions, partly because I think they don’t seem to me to mesh very well with what I read in the Gospels. (Example: I recently read in a message forwarded to me that one of the promises of Fatima is that the rosary will save the world. Should we Catholics believe that literally?)
But to keep my response on the topic of our thread, a great many Catholics including many whom I greatly respect firmly believe in the messages reported from Fatima, Garabandal and so on. So I am trying these days to be more open minded about them. I’m not finding it easy, believe me.
“Now I hate to be a pain in the rear to all here (but we philosophy professors are pretty good at being just that), but without more elaboration I think we are back to the beginning. If by “the entire people’s supernatural sense” the council fathers are referring to all of the people of God, then it’s not so clear to me when we ever have universal consensus among us. ”
Hi, Peter, yes, as a practical matter it seems problematic to get a snapshot of the sensus fidelium at a given moment of time. Perhaps it’s one of those “always-becoming” things rather than a “we’ve-already-arrived” kind of things. Our faith waxes and wanes, and our unity with Christ and other His Body strengthens and weakens over time.
Peter V.—
This interesting thread has continued long enough that I don’t feel guilty specifically addressing your thoughts about Fatima. ;) I don’t recall that any of the “promises” made by the BVM at Fatima involved praying the Rosary to save the world, but Mary did say that praying the Rosary can result in both world and personal peace. That’s hardly a radical thought. istm.
I think I’ve mentioned this book before, but you may want to pick up a copy of William T. Walsh’s “Our Lady of Fatima,” which was written in the mid-1950’s and is available in paperback at amazon.com for about $10 or $11. Walsh believed in Fatima before he started researching his book—that alone may be sufficient taint to deter some prospective readers—but I think Walsh gives a fair and unbiased account. He also benefited from interviews he was able to conduct with many of the eyewitnesses, including Lucia herself, members of the children’s families, local officials, and some of the 70,000 present for the “Miracle of the Sun.”
You may or may not be convinced by the account Walsh gives of the events, and I’d certainly like to hear your thoughts offline if you do give the book a read, but what stood out most for me was the utter lack of guile in the three children. They had absolutely nothing to gain from inventing a story about apparitions (which also included several pre-BVM appearances by an archangel who identified himself as the “Angel of Peace”). The children hated the publicity that followed public awareness of their visits to the apparition site, they were mocked by many, including by members of their own families, and at one point they were threatened with imminent death by a local official, and yet they never recanted any part of their story. Some have commented that the children were impressionable and not capable of separating fact from fiction, but Lucia lived to the age of 97, and she never deviated from the details she related as a teenager. In addition, she reported that she had experienced a number of visits in her convent cell over her long life by the BVM and, on at least one occasion, by Christ Himself. At a minimum, the book will provide you with all the background behind the Fatima story, details that never make their way into the MSM.
Bill C. –
One of the Fatima promises was, “Russia will be converted”. The apparitions may have been genuine, , but if so, what does it mean? As I remember the incidents were post-Communist Revolution. Does that promise mean that the Communists will turn Christian? If so, which sort of Chtistian –Orthodox or RC or What?
If the apparitions were not authentic, it seems a very surprising thing to me that those little children would make up a story about Russia. Russia? Why would they even think of it? Weren’t they quite young?
Ann–
Jacinta was 7, Francisco was 8, and Lucia was 10. (For some reason, I had it in my mind Lucia was about 13.) They were essentially unschooled, so it’s highly unlikely they would know about “Russia.” They were all devoted to praying the Rosary daily, usually when tending sheep by themselves on the mountainsides. During the last apparition that all three were present for, the BVM identified herself as the “Lady of the Rosary.” If I remeber correctly, the Angel of Peace also urged devotion to the Rosary.
As to the conversion of Russia, the BVM asked that the Pope, in union with all the bishops of the world, “consecrate” Russia to her Immaculate Heart. Lucia reported to JPII in a private meeting in the early 1980′s that the BVM had told her in a recent apparition that earlier papal consecrations did not meet the criteria Mary had set for consecration, and, in 1984, JP II undertook the consecration again. A few years later, the USSR fell apart, religious freedom became much more of a reality, and Russia’s status as a military super power diminished greatly. Who knows if the 1984 consecration played a part in what was a remarkable collapse of the USSR and Soviet-style Communism, or what, exactly, “conversion” means? Perhaps it is conversion to Christianity in general–e.g, the Orthodox churches–with repair of the Great Schism at some future date. I certainly don’t know the answers, but I am somewhat surprised that significant numbers of Catholics seem closed to the possibility that the BVM did appear at Fatima (or Guadalupe or Lourdes). To be sure, belief in one or more of these apparitions is not part of the deposit of faith, and it’s good to have healthy skepticism, but for those who will accept 100% certainty only, there’s little in the world that can ever satisfy such a standard. For example, 70,000 people witnessed the Miracle of the Sun. It’s just too easy to write it off as mass hysteria.
Hello William (and All),
Thanks very much for the fine responses and for the Walsh reference. I’m afraid it will be sometime before I can give this work a look because the semester is underway and I in the thick of teaching, working on research projects and the like till the Christmas season.
“I am somewhat surprised that significant numbers of Catholics seem closed to the possibility that the BVM did appear at Fatima (or Guadalupe or Lourdes).”
To respond to your observation for my own case only, I should have been more clear. I don’t claim that the BVM did not appear on occasions and places corresponding to the reports Church has declared “worthy of belief”. I’m just not prepared to accept them, partly because of the many outright contradictory claims I’ve heard about them. Also, as I have said before I admit to having doubts about them because so far as I know, only Roman Catholics have eever reported such apparitions. I keep wondering, wouldn’t the Blessed Mother want to visit people who are outside the Roman Catholic Church as well? Jesus after all most certainly did not limit his contact to Jewish people who faithfully kept the law.
Of course I realize that one could argue in the other direction and conclude that BVMs appearing to Roman Catholics only is more proof that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church.
“but Mary did say that praying the Rosary can result in both world and personal peace. That’s hardly a radical thought. istm. ”
Finally thanks very much for clearing me up on this point. I now suspect that the message I was sent before is misrepresenting what really was reported at Fatima. There seems to be a lot of this kind of misrepresentation floating about.
Yep. It’s all the same. Vatican II said this in it’s Constitution Dei Verbum:
“Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.”
Vatican II showed that traditions should be kept with loyalty. Vatican II is cool in reality. Sorta.