Do Commonweal Catholics have a future?
With regard to the issues raised by Mark and Margaret, I think the latter’s raising of the “what” question is important. If we’re wondering “where” something is, we need to know “what” we are looking for. As Margaret suggests, “Commonweal Catholic” or “liberal Catholic” can describe a number of different schools of thought.
Historically, there was a liberal Catholic tradition of thought that attempted to reconcile Catholicism with liberal democracy. That project has been overwhelmingly successful. In that sense, Pope John Paul II was a liberal Catholic. We tend to take the success of this movement almost for granted today, but a look back at papal statements of the 19th and early 20th centuries shows how significant the development of doctrine has been in this area.
Secondly, one might see a liberal Catholic tradition within academic theology. This could encompass historical criticism in biblical studies and efforts to reconcile Catholic theology with certain trends in modern philosophy, particularly the “turn to the subject.” This movement has been largely successful among academic theologians, although the doctrinal authorities in the Church have tended to view these developments more critically. The success of this project is also being challenged within the academy itself by post-liberal and post-modern approaches.
Finally, I would say that there is a liberal Catholicism that was inspired both by the Second Vatican Council (or at least a certain reading of it) and by the social movements of the 1960s and 70s, particularly feminism. Of all the liberal Catholic projects, this is the one that remains the most contested within the Church.
Now liberal Catholics of this third school often look back to the first for inspiration. In the same way that the Church had to come to terms with the political liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries—so the argument goes—it is suggested that it must eventually come to terms with the social liberalism of the 20th and 21st centuries.
I think this thesis is subject to challenge on a few points. The first is that Christian denominations that have taken this form of liberalism most to heart are also those that seem to be experiencing a serious crisis of confidence, as evidenced by declining membership, intra-denominational splits over issues like homosexuality, and—in some cases—increasing discomfort with core Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ and the Trinity. I find it difficult in the face of this evidence to argue that the embrace of this kind of liberalism is a strategy for Christian renewal. It may be justifiable on other grounds, but this is probably not one of them.
Secondly, a specifically liberal vision of Catholicism no longer seems to motivate large numbers of Catholics to consider vocations to the priesthood or religious life. The reasons for this are complex, and have at least something to do with Vatican II’s efforts to re-valorize the lay state as a path to holiness. But the fact that “liberal Catholicism” does not seem to inspire many of those called to states of life the Church has always highly valued should, I think, cause its advocates some concern.
Finally, I think the sociological conditions are radically different than those that obtained when liberal Catholicism (of the first type) was in the ascendancy. The leading figures of liberal Catholicism were people deeply and permanently rooted in the Catholic tradition who were, nevertheless, also deeply at home in cultures shaped by the Enlightenment. This tension—a tension that many felt had to be resolved—was felt both by academic theologians like John Courtney Murray and the blue-collar Catholics who insisted they were as American as their Protestant “betters.” I think this widely shared sense of a need for reconciliation between Catholicism and modernity gave the liberal Catholic project an enormous amount of intellectual energy and popular appeal that it seems to lack today.
It’s not that the tension between Catholicism and contemporary culture doesn’t still exist. But the emerging generation of Catholics has weaker roots in the Church and is generally comfortable “following their conscience” when confronted with difficult doctrines. Most American Catholics can generally find a parish where they won’t be confronted with the teachings they find objectionable. When such “local” accommodation is possible, the pressure to demand more global change is reduced.
This could change, of course, if large numbers of the newly ordained insist on preaching sermons on contraception every Sunday. But my guess is that if “local” accommodation becomes impossible, Catholics unhappy with this state of affairs will simply leave the Church (few believe that this would put their salvation at risk). What they are certainly much less likely than Catholics of the past to do is to invest in journals like Commonweal. When the costs of “exit” are reduced, the need for “voice” is diminished.
I wish I could be more hopeful. If I didn’t have some sympathy for elements of the liberal Catholic project, I wouldn’t be a Commonweal subscriber and contributor and I wouldn’t be posting here. But since I’m professionally a management consultant, telling people they are living on a “burning platform” is more or less what I do for a living.
Thoughts, anyone?
on March 12th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Thanks for the post, Peter. I’m out the door now, but I’d like to see someone take up the contentious proposition that liberal Catholicism carries blame for the decrease in vocations to the priesthood.
on March 12th, 2006 at 9:43 am
The original post is reflective and offers a good basis for an analysis of the problems of identity fo “Commonweal Catholics” (who of course read other periodicals like America and The Christian Century). There is a bit of a Trojan Horse in the argument as is evident in the opinion that liberal Catholicism is to blame for a decline in vocations among its ranks. You can find this argument being made frequently on the right wing Catholic blogs, coupled with the observation that “faithful” Catholics generate more vocations because there are now available to them “traditionalist” seminaries and religious orders, where they can live an orthodox Catholic life.
The problem is a bit more complicated in that there are deeper ecclesial issues that need to be accounted for. Suppose liberal Catholics, who think it is time for a married priesthood and the ordination of women lack confidence in the existing structure of ministry in Catholicism? Are they likely to invest themselves in an institution they are questioning? Indeed there are liberal Catholics who see entering a seminary as participating in an unjust social structure. This will account in part for a lack of vocations among liberals Catholics.
If you want to get theological about it you can also make the argument that in the past 25 years vocations that were given to women and men, who wished to be married, were not accepted by the Church. This evolved into a circular reasoning among the hierarchy, from the Pope on down, that defined priesthood very narrowly in order to justify their refusal of the work of the Holy Spirit. Many who had hoped 30 years ago that there would be a married clergy and women priests are now greatly disillusioned and disaffected. In the ’70’s Catholic seminaries and schools of theology were chock full with women and lay men getting M.Div.s to be positioned for the time when women and married men would be ordained. A survey of these schools today will show a paucity of women and lay men students.
In addition to those reasons, there is the prior question about the nature of a permanent commitment to the priesthood or religious life. Unlike past generations in which a person may have worked at the same job for a lifetime, young people in the last 25 years have become accustomed to having greater mobility and to making job changes more frequently. Those who were more altruistically motivated found other volunteer outlets that allowed them a limited committment . They did social outreach in the Peace Corps, in the Jesuit Volunteers or in Teach for America, etc. and then went on to pursue a career and a family. Thirty years ago these people would have entered religious life or the seminary.
The empowerment of traditionalist religious orders and a reform of the seminaries under John Paul II provided a place for more conservative Catholics to pursue a vocation. True, these individuals would not have entered a religious order that did not have the external signs they were looking for, which would set them apart from other men and women in society. The same is true of men who enter traditionalist seminaries. These individuals want a special status that places them above the laity, and traditionalist seminaries provide that. The Pope and the hierarchy knew that if they exploited this sense of elitism and restored a triumphalist priesthood young people would respond.
So it would seem, then, that the reasons why liberal Catholics do not generate vocations and why “faithful” Catholics do are varied and diverse. They do not admit to easy analysis and categorizing.
on March 12th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Liberal Catholics do produce vocations: to marriage!
on March 12th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Absolutely! And even to the single state if you can imagine that. The original post, however, dealt only with the question of vocations to the prietshood and religious life so the context would dictate that the word “vocations” in the last paragraph refers to what the original poster had claimed.
on March 12th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Hi Peter,
It’s great to have you among the blogging again.
I think you rightly point out that the initial burst of energy by liberal Catholicism in the post-Vatican II era was fueled by the efforts to reconcile Catholicism with the modern world. I think this effort eventually failed because the modern world has no desire to be reconciled with the Church. Moderns and post-moderns want nothing more than a complete takeover and shutter the doors to the Church. As a former progressive Catholic, I reached a point where I realized I had to make an allegience one way or another.
What sealed the deal for me was that I felt that liberal Catholics were selling out Christ and the gospels. The more liberal Catholics wanted to reconcile to modern culture the more liberal Catholics discounted the works and teachings of Jesus in the gospels. The Jesus Seminar is an extreme example of this effort. However, I lost count of the times I heard or read something to the effect the gospels were unstrustwothy accounts of Jesus’ teachings in the effort to justify the liberal Catholic position. In this view, Jesus is a cypher for the evangelists then and the magisterium now. I think Christ deserves better than being cast as first century Chauncey Gardner.
For liberal Catholicism to renew itself, I think it needs to be more true to the gospel and the tradition instead of selling these out for a culture that will only rejoice in the death of the gospel.
on March 12th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Just to clarify, I am not arguing that liberal Catholicism is responsible for a decline in vocations to the priesthood. What I was trying to say is that fewer men and women chosing priesthood and religious life today are strongly motivated by something akin to a “liberal Catholic” worldview.
It is worth noting that this was not always the case. I would say that a significant number (although probably not a majority) of those entering the priesthood and religious life in the 1960s and 70s were motivated by a vision of Catholicism and its role in the world that had much in common with liberal Catholicism. I was merely trying to point out that this no longer seems to be the case.
on March 13th, 2006 at 12:42 am
Michael:
Thanks for your kind words. Let me offer a couple of thoughts for you to ponder.
I don’t think that all liberal Catholics, and certainly not all “Commonweal Catholics,” hold views similar to the Jesus Seminar. Luke Timothy Johnson, a Commonweal contributor and a reasonably liberal fellow, wrote a whole book (”The Real Jesus”) refuting the Jesus Seminar. Years before the CDF issued its criticisms of Roger Haight’s “Jesus: Symbol of God,” John Cavadini of Notre Dame had criticized the book in a review in, yes, Commonweal. One of the best defenses I read of the CDF’s statement “Dominus Iesus” was written by theologian and regular Commonweal contributor (not to mention DotCommonweal blogger) Robert Imbelli.
In his famous debate a few years ago with Cardinal George, Peter Steinfels drew what I think is a useful distinction between liberal Catholicism and the Catholic left. I might suggest that your concerns may be more with the latter than the former. Something to think about anyway.
God bless,
Peter
on March 13th, 2006 at 7:29 am
For what it’s worth, I was a seminarian in the 1950s and 1960s, and then a professor at the major seminary for ten years, and I can attest that through all that time only a small minority of seminarians read “The Commonweal,” as it then was called.
jak
on March 13th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Peter, thanks for your comments. I have a lingering question. What would distinguish a liberal Catholic from the Catholic Left? Does a liberal Catholic want a reform of Catholic doctrinal and moral teachings to coincide with the liberal political agenda in the US? Is the Catholic Left more likely to affirm the teaching of the Church and apply this teaching to the surrounding culture? I would assume that there is overlap of the two with a desire for a more transparent operation of the Church (money, naming of bishops, etc).
on March 13th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
First, I would like to thank Commonweal for providing this forum for discussion and an open exchange of ideas.
In considering Mark’s original question, the following scripture came to mind (edited to make my point).
1Cor 1:12-13 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I belong to Steinfels,” or “I belong to Mother Angelica,” or “I belong to Neuhaus,” or “I belong to Chittister.” Is Christ divided? Was Steinfels crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Mother A?
I hope I’m not missing the point, but it seems to me that asking about the future of Commonweal Catholics is the wrong question. Perhaps a better question is, “What are the movements that are inviting people into the fullest experience of authentic Catholicism and what can progressive Catholic thought contribute to this experience” I think that the utillity of any intellectual movement within Catholicism is the degree to which that movement points back to a deeper understanding of authentic Catholicism.
For instance, originally, the progressive movement within Catholicism was so vibrant, IMHO, because it pointed to such ideals as the preferential option for the poor, the dignity of all persons, the importance of the priesthood of the laity, and the universal call to holiness. These were important, but often overlooked, issues that invited the wider Church to a fuller and more authentic experience of Catholicism.
These concepts, however have become mainstream. You would be hardpressed to find anyone along any point of the political right-left spectrum who considered him or herself a religiously committed Catholic and did not value these ideals.
In the past, because the progressive movement offered so much good, it was easy to overlook the areas it was weak on, namely, its equivocation to the popular culture on life issues. Today, since bioethics is the main battleground, progressive Catholicism has little to say that is different than what the average secular materialist has to say on the topics. As such, progressive Catholicism has excused itself from the most relevant discussions of the day.
There is little within progressive Catholicism that helps a person more abundantly experience authentic Catholicism in the context of the most hotly debated issues of the day. What do Catholic progressives say about abortion that Will Saletan isn’t already saying? What do they have to say about gay marriage that the Human Rights Campaign isn’t saying louder and better? The people who are making the most shocking and countercultural statements about these topics are all on the right.
Only when progressives find that they have something counter-cultural and useful to say on these issues will they regain their relevance. Until then, I suspect their influence will be more divisive than instructive. I wish it weren’t so, but I am not sure how else to view it.
Thanks again for the forum. I look forward to your thoughts.
Peace,
Greg
on March 13th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
This is a great conversation - and I thought Greg’s first 5 paragraphs were brilliant (which made up for my disagreemwnt with his suggestion that love of the poor is universally proclaimed - but see, transnationals, consumerism). Our goal must be to achieve authentic catholicity, to follow Christ more nearly. On the level of principle, we should be indifferent as to whether that leads us to the right, to the left, or to the middle.
It seems to me that the obsession of the left (inc Catholic progressives) with gender and sexuality has become destructive to the true and high call of the movement, which I see as the defense of human rights and human dignity. While the political left is so focused on abortion, we’re losing the achievements of the Great Society, maybe the New Deal, the unions are systematically defeated, we’ve started torturing people and locking up people without warrant or review, and all this talk of family values in a world where 70% of African-American children are born to single mothers. And are the results better within the Church? The school system that used to care about educating the poor is collapsing and costs a mint, our charitable hospitals are corporations that sick debt collectors on the poor - is our parish structure democratic, or is it anemic? Are women respected within Catholic families, or do rates of domestic violence soar? Are children loved, or abandoned and molested? Name one area in which we progress. Our literature? Our philosophy? (do you count Scalia/Thomas control of the SupCt as Catholic progress?)
Of course there are few vocations - vocations are nurtured within communities - what vocation is nurtured by calling it exclusive and sexist and belittling to women? What difficult road is encouraged by saying that priests and religious shouldn’t have to give up all that they are asked to give up by taking vows?
The left is being pursued by the Hound of Heaven, we’re being battered and defeated, and we will be again and again, until we take a look around, and ask how we got here. My answer is: the Dems got here by becoming reflexively pro-choice. The left within the Church got here by becoming reflexively against church authority, which has simply opened us up to other authorities proclaimed in the secular arena. There is only one way out: admit defeat.
When I was in school, and Evangelium Vitae was published, I remember us students wondering what our right-wing catholic professor would do (he had always been pro-death penalty, inc. publishing defenses of it). The guy changed his position, after 50 years. I’m still awed by it, at the humility it required, in the academic context. The best lesson he ever taught.
I propose Dorothy Day as a model. Not unwilling to criticize the hierarchy for its actions, but never disagreeing with Church doctrine - traits that allowed her to advocate for the poor, and for peace, but made it difficult for her detractors to effectively label her.
Peace,
Chuck
on March 14th, 2006 at 10:43 am
A hypothesis, based on a dangerous thing, a little knowledge.
After Vatican II, which first met when I was 11, the heretics and schismatics we feared — old-timers told me about having to refuse friends’ offers to stand as ushers or maids in Protestant weddings, and sitting silently in the back row of Protestant funerals — suddenly became our separated brothers and sisters. Their clergy stopped being “false priests” and were welcomed into fellowship with our own clergy.
All of a sudden these ministers were no longer consigned to hellfire but were good people, although they weren’t our ministers.
And many of us saw that they were married, and that they were still good ministers to their people — unlike the Hobson’s choice we Catholics received: celibacy for priests, sisters or brothers, take it or leave it.
In the minds of many lay Catholics, especially us youngest sons who might otherwise have seen the seminary as our duty, one of the pillars of the celibate standard had been knocked over, the value of the sign of singlehood diminished as we no longer trashed the ministry of the married separated kinfolk.
Why not married clergy? Indeed, the church itself is willing to bend the rule, welcoming married Protestant convert clergy into the priesthood. But not for us cradle Catholics.
I am no theologian, no ecclesiologist. But the inconsistency screams for resolution.
on March 14th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
RP,
I would argue that the issue isn’t really celibacy. While I think that celibacy has its place as a witness to radical service in a hypersexual culture, and while I can think of several practical reasons for keeping it, I don’t think too many people on the right or left would get their wimple in a knot over the optional discipline of celibacy being overturned.
I do think though that your point about confusion about the role of Protestant ministers is well taken. Except for those few denominations with apostolic succession, Protestant ministers have no special ordination that you and I as members of the common priesthood don’t have. Every baptised, confirmed Catholic has exactly the same spiritual authority as any Protestant minister.
It is the confusion about the nature of the sacramental versus the common priesthood that is the rub. The confusion of the two, especially by Catholics on the left accounts for the devaluation and dearth of vocations on the left.
on March 15th, 2006 at 12:55 am
In reviewing the comments posted above no one has addressed Peter’s implied contention that our favourite magazine may be facing a very uncertain future. I believe that there is a possibility that exactly the opposite could happen, if as I suspect, we are heading for a confrontation with a militantly, neo-authoritarian Catholicism.
If progressive Catholics cannot find a “‘local’ accommodation” they will create one. I suspect there will be both priests and bishops who will joint them. Some right wing elements have been inviting what they insultingly call “dissidents” to just leave. Few have done so because there is one thing they do not want to abandon and that is the Sacrifice of the Mass. This they cannot get by walking across the street to a Protestant neighbour. If this becomes the dominant model then the need for a voice will be intensified, not diminished, and Commonweal stands a good chance of filling it.
I would also contend that even if the costs of exit are nil, the need for community is not lessened. In that sense a need for voice still exists. In my own experience, in the late sixties there was no cost to exit then as now. But there was a need to stay in touch and for me the “voice” I stayed in touch with was Commonweal.
I would prefer to hope that just as the polarization caused by the election of George W. Bush to a second term combined with both the House and Senate in Republican hands, resulted not in an abandonment of progressive magazines but rather an increase to their subscription base. The Nation is this regard was among the most notable. Could not the same thing happen within the Catholic Church as the polarization of opinion increases?
on March 15th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Our church is desperate for competent, gifted and enthusiastic priests. Where will we get them from? Not, I submit, from other countries and cultures where priesthood is seen as an economic alternative to a better lifestyle.
Also not from super conservative seminarians who want to reimpose a strict, legalistic view of spirituality. We do not need another flock of pharisees.
We could embrace a married priesthood which might result in real ‘competition’ for parish assignments. We could actually consider women as priests as the Lutheran and Episcopal churhces have. I have met with and worked with many of these women and find them actually very refreshing and eminently successful as clergy and leaders of congregations.
If we don’t do something soon, we will become a museum church similar to the European experience.
on March 15th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Greg,
You use the phrase ‘authentic Catholicism’. But who defines it? Each one has his version of the ‘authentic’ and that is the problem.
I think ‘liberals’ are characterised by their approach to issues. Inherently there is a suspicion of ‘authority’. There is more respect for the individual, for differing opinions, for reasoning. But, I am in India, and for us here the general feeling is that this glorification of the individual has been carried too far in the West, especially in matters like sexual morality, ‘political correctness’ etc. So it is not really surprising that some sort of fundamentalist reaction set in
Sunil Korah
on March 15th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Having attended in the past decade what many consider a “conservative” Catholic university as an undergraduate, and a “liberal” Catholic university as a graduate, I can attest to the trend that young, thinking Catholics (age 20-35) tend to take little interest in Commonweal. Younger Catholics can smell ideology and propaganda with more accuracy than their predecessors in the Church, and, with all due respect to its journalistic intentions, Commonweal reads like an aging political manifesto one too many steps to the left. Young Catholics are not looking for a forum that measures the Church–in whichever manner and whatever measure–by sociological or political models and constructs. That approach may have sufficed for past generations of nominal Catholics, but young Catholics, wherever they may be perched on the theological spectrum, are attempting to restore what was put assunder by periodicals such as Commonweal. Spirituality, stability, inspiration. Commonweal, in the name of the critical spirit, leaves Catholicism hallow and, in many respects, superfluous. Like Socrates, Commonweal asks many questions and provides no solutions. And, like Enlightment rationalism, its approach is flawed and disingenuous.
Young Catholics are disillusioned with the critical spirit’s lack of direction and substance, and if Commonweal’s editors want to reach them, they need to get out of the 1970’s and pay closer attention to what young, thinking Catholics actually read and seek. Is it any secret that the pope can draw millions of youth to Europe, Asia and North America while Commonweal, VOTF and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles R.Ed. Congress are followed by no more than auditorium-sized crowds of “Vatican II” Catholics? Catholic life today is a performative contradiction of nearly every position taken by the pages of Commonweal.
In the meantime, Commonweal will continue to pat itself on the back for its supposed “open-mindedness” and “critical and progressive approach” without realizing that its philosophy remains an adequated relic of a bygone era. Commonweal’s readers are getting older…sooner rather than later, it too will go extinct.
on March 15th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
The statement by Greg Popcak below really jumped out at me. Namely, that these issues are mainstream, especially the ‘preferential option for the poor.’ Would that you were right,Greg. I know one person commented on this. Does anyone else have the same concern I have?
“For instance, originally, the progressive movement within Catholicism was so vibrant, IMHO, because it pointed to such ideals as the preferential option for the poor, the dignity of all persons, the importance of the priesthood of the laity, and the universal call to holiness. These were important, but often overlooked, issues that invited the wider Church to a fuller and more authentic experience of Catholicism.
These concepts, however have become mainstream. You would be hardpressed to find anyone along any point of the political right-left spectrum who considered him or herself a religiously committed Catholic and did not value these ideals.”
Again, Greg, if you were right would not Barfur and the rest of African become a thing of the past, not to mention Haiti and the abject poverty in Latin America. Lead us Greg. I am willing to listen.
on March 16th, 2006 at 2:31 am
I just thought it worth noting that the “crisis of the Commonweal/liberal Catholic” is nothing special to Catholicism. On the contrary. All the institutions and expressions of what we might (to speak in parochially US terms) call the “New Deal consensus” have been in a state of crisis since the unheavals of the late 60s and early 70s — and most especially those on the “progressive” (vaguely leftish) side.
The whole point of the “New Deal consensus” (which was not just a consensus within the Democratic Party) was to find and maintain an accommodation between — to speak in the terms of the time — Capital and Labour. One didn’t need to make a choice, pick a side — choose oligarchy and slavery or democracy and socialism — it argued, an argument echoed by the Church. The accommodation worked for a time, then it became just too costly for either side to maintain. “Liberal” was the term most associated with the advocates of the accommodation and those who could no longer stomach it — be they the oligarchic “conservatives” or the democratic “radicals” — have been equally vituperative in its condemnation ever since, much to the confusion of all the agencies of that accommodation: liberal/social democratic parties, trade unions, the civil service, middle management, the universities and schools, domestic manufacturing, etc.
I don’t want to deny any of the specifically Catholic roots or expressions of this crisis. I want only to draw attention to the fact that your concerns are hardly idiosyncratic (what, to choose an pertinent example, ever happened to the Social Gospel?) — and to suggest that you may have things to learn from the various paths (be they capitulationist or radicalized) taken by other erstwhile liberal democratic organs.
on March 18th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Joe’s comment brings to mind an event that teaches us not to always judge a book by its cover.
In 1964, our parish was growing and for the first time we received an assistant pastor. He was very close to my early twenties age and we became close friends. He was also giving my finance instructions in the faith and approaching it from a modestly liberal perspective. As a thank-you at Christmas I gave him a subscription to as Joe says The Commonweal.
A year later he suggested I not renew his subscription when we talked about it. Then just last year two very interesting things happened.
I had a chance to visit him, now like me in old age, but in my opinion very bitter and fearful and almost obsessed with the homosexual agenda. Juxtaposed to that visit was a moment when I happened to be going through the 1964/5 issue of The Commonweal with the list of Commonweal Contributors from the previous year listed and whose name should I discover on that list but the Church’s pastor. His name was Cecil Sullivan; I had always perceived him as a stern gruff sort of guy and at the time likely nearing 60.
Little did I know behind that gruff exterior (I had been an altar boy for him) hid a Commonweal Catholic.