Open discussion is something treasured in European Democracy and even in American Democracy. When the RCC claims that open discussion is incompatible with certain of its teachings, this inevitably attracts the suspicion that there is something fishy about those teachings themselves. The crackdown on open discussion has amounted to a crackdown on theology itself -- as witnessed by the sacking or smearing of pretty much all the leading moral theologians of the RCC. It has also militated against collegiality, as witnessed by the handling of the triennial Roman Synods. Also it has left church teaching quite bereft of expert input and enlightened understanding on matters of life-and-death concern such as contraception and homosexuality. The RCC will have to relearn what Europe has learned over centuries of open debate and consultation, namely, that open discussion is the oxygen of the spirit and that without it pathologies of all kind, including violent fundamentalism, will thrive.
"Open discussion" is a euphemism for tolerating pernicious heresies. The Church has never been and never will be a democracy. As for the supposed crackdown on theology, "theology" means having discourse with and about God -- and it is impossible to have discourse with God when one upholds a doctrinal or moral error.
Joe,
There is nothing wrong with open discussion and questioning of Church teaching by students in the classroom, by members of round table discussions in the media, in the forum, the marketplace of ideas, etc.
Where open discussion has no place is where God's Word is being proclaimed. This is why not even a priest has the right to ride his own hobby horse of private opinions in his preaching, because when he speaks in persona Christi he speaks for Christ, not himself. Likewise, when professors occupy chairs of Catholic theology, they have no right to misrepresent themselves as Catholic when their teaching may be directed at subverting Catholic teaching.
There is nothing wrong with an open forum of ideas. In fact, it may be none other than the Church and her high view of human life that has made possible the defense of natural human freedoms in Western tradition. But there are other parts of the city besides the formum. If you don't know that, you've never heard God's Word.
What then, if you were a Christian living in first-century Antioch, and the instruction came from the Church hierarchy at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) to abstain from the meat of strangled animals, from blood, and from fornication--which decree they identified with the will of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28 ) -- would you lobby for an open forum to discuss the pros and cons of accepting this or than part of the instruction, or perhaps write a paper on the the hermeneutics of interpreting the meaning of "fornication" that would justify extra-marital sex under certain conditions of "conscience"?
Father O'Leary:
(I suppose I didn't realize until recently that you actually are a priest. Given that I know now, I will address you properly. Please accept my apologies for the breach of proper behavior).
I find most troubling that you think censure of heretics and schismatics is the equivalent of quashing legitimate discussion among those who are loyal Catholics. If I began by equating rape and the marital embrace, you would rightly make my knuckles bleed, one being an act of raw power and violence, while the other is the most intimate form of human love. Why are the best thinkers in the Church all heretics? Doesn't Germain Grisez have anything helpful? What about Dietrich von Hildebrand? Father Bouyer? His Holiness the Pope, being a practitioner of theology before his elevation to the See of Peter?
Perhaps you need to step back to see whom you are lauding and whom you are condemning. I have had to do this on occasion -- often at my wife's insistence and for my own good. You don't have a wife, I presume, but perhaps filial correction has its uses as well?
Why did Fr. Leary not identify himself as a priest?
One wonders.
“Catholic”, as I understand it, involves placing a large measure of trust in the God-protected ability of the visible, hierarchical Church to lead people to the fullness of all that God intended to bestow upon them in Christ.
If I'm not mistaken, this is something that the Catholic church has always and everywhere taught about itself. It is a way of understanding the promise of God to be "with us always".
Having instilled that teaching in the minds of the faithful, it's only honoring their creed - which is also my creed - when Catholic hierarchs insist that a journal which is under their jurisdiction, and explicitly claims to be "Catholic" not mislead people about what the Church is teaching.
Hey, what a venomous comment by sissa above! Proves my point that there is a seething anti-clericalism in the hearts of many faithful who drop "Father" on you with venomous emphasis!
I guess that means you aren't going to answer sissa's question.
Father O'Leary:
How do you read seething anticlericalism in Sissa's question? As Master Cromwell points out in A Man for All Seasons, sometimes silence betokens nothing. How are we supposed to reserve a place of honor for a priest we can not identify? We Knights of Columbus have a habit of standing when a priest enters a room. If we don't know a particular priest and he doesn't identify himself, how are we supposed to show him the proper respect. Far from anticlericalism, Sissa's question makes perfect sense. Your opinions don't mark you as a priest. Your faceless presence in cyberspace doesn't mark you as a priest, so how else were we supposed to know?
Chris
Venerande, identificas teipsum ut membrum Columbani Equitum. Insignus Hiberniae sanctus missionarius fuit criticus Romani Pontificis Vigilii ("non bene vigilavit"). Injuste me imputasti intentionem deceptionis, quae longissime fuit a corde meo. Expostulationes apoplecticae non sunt in hoc casu ad propositum. Ego me introduxi ut antiquus Philppi, qui cum eo auditor fui indimenticabilis professoris philosophiae Andre Schuwer in annis 1982-3, et Philippo bene notus qua sacerdotus et theologus. Vinum cum annis dulcius fit, sed in aliquibus econtra amare fit. Ego in hoc foro aperte loqui; suspiciones indignae anonymi seu anonymae qui sub titulo "Sissa" scripsit non habent fundamentum.
correctionem adiungo: antiquus amicus Philippi.
An Equites Sncti Columbani monstant venerationem versus sacerdotes insinuando indignas suspiciones? Quae strategia insidiosa est haec?
"Sancte Polycarpe", ironica interrogatio tua non habet fundamentum. Celans identitatem tuam sub nomine magni sancti discipuli Johannis Evangelistae attribuas tibi auram gloriosam quod cum sarcasmo Juvenali tetriore haud bene accordata sit.
Thank you, Father, for reintroducing the use of Latin into everyday life. Perhaps we could now introduce it again into the Liturgy? I didn't understand everything, but I caught most of what you said. With the ICEL translation of your comments soon to be made available, however, non-Latin speakers and those weak in their faith will be led horridly astray. Observe: when Mass was in Latin, everyone knew his faith. Now that it is in English, some small fraction still attend Mass and a smaller fraction still believe what the Church teaches, and a still smaller fraction makes a serious attempt to live that faith.
Fr. O'Leary, my confirmation name is St. Polycarp.
"Thank you, Father, for reintroducing the use of Latin into everyday life."
I for one think it is beneath me to respond to anything unless my interlocutor writes it in the modern language of scholarship, Appalachian English. :-P
Latina lingua, vetustum et pulchrum idioma, est lingua officialis Ecclesiae Romanae, consecrata Dei gloria in translatione Sacrarum Scripturarum quae dicitur Vulgata et in sacra liturgia et confessione fidei. Lingua Augustini et Aquinatis est lingua prima sacrae theologiae, sine qua nulla disputatio theologica professionaliter haberi postest. Lingua anglica est nimis potens in hodierno mundo et influentia eius in multis aspectis nefas dicenda est. In hoc laudo Papam Benedictum, quod memoriam gloriosarum praeteritarum aetatum culturae occidentalis defendit contra barbaram oblivionem et boetianam ignorantiam.
To St. Polycarp:
Perhaps since he now insists on speaking Latin, will he only be able to express orthodox thoughts? Could this be a tremendously good thing?
Appalachian English? May I recommend that you study also the inimitable language called eduspeak? Certain kinds of Carolinian English are also quite remarkable for their opacity.
Eduspeak gives me brain hemorrhages.
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