Open government for the Church

‘the pews are emptying’


It’s one thing for the chairs in a ‘church’ or ecclesiastical organisation which believes the Eucharist is only symbolic, and that forgiveness is a private transaction between you and God, to empty because those ‘churches’ are only private associations of individuals who rely on their ‘conscience’ to decide with whom others to do Bible study together.


If a pew-sitter vacates a Church which teaches that the Eucharist is the Real Presence and that sin is only forgiven by a sacrament that can only be administered by that Church, and who believes in Real Presence and Sacramental Forgiveness, that ex-pew-sitter is, by his or her own logic, insane or inane.


Ínsanity or inanity is saying ‘To myself’ in answer to Peter’s question ‘To whom else can we go?’


So much for logic meant to be instilled (at least, into those of Catholic persuasion) by millions of dollars, spent by parents and taxpayers on compulsory education. Instead, we have the logic of the antivaxxer who says, ‘For immunity against COVID, I can go to myself.’ I wonder how many of those ex-pew-sitters think the antivaxxers are mad, without realising that they are only looking into a mirror.

A curious contribution when examined for its coherence and plausibility.

Even assuming that Edward means a literal withdrawal from the Church, which no one, least of all those who love the Church enough to want to change matters at this dire juncture of renewal and reflection, post here as often as he does!

If such persons have 'literally' abandoned ship, why would they constitute a life-force in this discussion? And how might the qualifications, effort and literacy they bring to this discussion equate them with the ignorance of anti-vaxxers?

And, most important of all, where indeed are your own suggestions, Roy, in the midst of all this, for reform and renewal?

‘If such persons have 'literally' abandoned ship, why would they constitute a life-force in this discussion?

There are correspondents here who say they are no longer in the Church because it has left them. I can’t see, and neither can you, how a Church can leave you if you are umbilically attached to the sacraments it dispenses.

‘And how might the qualifications, effort and literacy they bring to this discussion equate them with the ignorance of anti-vaxxers?’

Naked emperors can speak with great and intricate depth about costume while everyone else can see they are naked (and attached by an umbilical cord to a Church waiting for them at the corner, motors running).


‘most important of all, where indeed are your own suggestions’

I could say that, like your suggestions for how to give asylum, they are still tucked out of sight in Anthony Padgen’s back pocket. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of order and progress in the Church is by petition to God the prime and ultimate mover of all things. Mary Mackillop’s bishop was fallible but ultimately, upon petition, God restored her (and made her a saint, to boot).

Is it the intention of some of the synodalists here merely to make the secular personality of the local (or universal) Church a paradigm of human best practice (eg., rules for reporting possible abuse), or is it to usurp influence over its divine personality (eg., to argue for female priesthood)?

Edward, are you assuming would-be reformers en masse know "the difference between authority and authoritarianism"? I'm afraid it wasn't a distinction evident in the stridency and unsupported assertiveness of a number of the reform proposals presented in the first stage of the Plenary Council sessions I attended.

And we all know about the role of devil's disciple that you assigned yourself in quashing those proposals, don't we?

The CEV version of John 2:24 has, ‘But Jesus knew what was in their hearts, and he would not let them have power over him.’


The need for confidentiality comes from the prudence --- and the very ordinary prudence at that, reflected somewhat in your dog not liking it when it sees you looking at it trying to bury its bone – that wanting to be transparent in all details is impossible since the Fall. After all, when the Church was a band of twelve plus One, there was already a fly in the ointment called Judas.


If confidentiality is good enough for Jesus who knew he was hated by the world, it’s good enough for his Church which is hated by the world, and if it’s good enough to be implanted in your dog to supplement its innocence, it should be good enough for you to supplement your human nous.

And how might that critically important reminder of your's meet the crying need for a failing Church in a world in which democracy offers the best hope of tackling the challenges of the temporal world? Are you, in fact, enunciating the Protestant (and quintessentially Calvinist) Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms here, John?

Even 'Unam Sanctam' (Boniface VIII, 1302) doesn't do that. In the week in which we celebrate 'The Beatitudes' a post, such as your's, invites deeper reflection and clarification about the complex limits and interconnections, especially as taught in the Social Encyclicals, between Church and State.

In answer to your question, MF, I should hope not. And I wonder what prompts you as a Jesuit alumnus, if "Two Kingdoms" are relevant, to place Pope John Paul II's instruction cited in the context of Calvinism rather than St Ignatius Loyola's "Two Standards" (or "Two Kingdoms") meditation in his Spiritual Exercises? Or, for that matter, St Augustine's City of Man and City of God?

Augustine's Eden account condemns us to the everlasting perdition of Original Sin. (Biblical scholars hesitate in raising this uniquely Western-Christian interpretation, introduced half a millennium after Christ).

Eden has never been accepted by the Jews and Orthodox. Everyone sees these tales through the filters of subsequent history. When challenged you appeal to 'the magisterium' but that changes nothing!

Because the developed world is one of 'logos' (your favourite word) some people like you and Roy read Scripture literally, assuming its intention is to unleash the kind of accurate information that we expect from any other historical text and, more worryingly, that this is the way these stories have always been understood.

In fact, well into the modern period Jews and Christians insisted that it was neither possible nor desirable to read Scripture in this way and that it gives us no single, orthodox message while instead demanding constant reinterpretation.

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, when challenged about this in Sydney, responded: 'That is why we have the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. Nothing is fixed and all is open to interpretation.'

Eden is an imaginary account, not a morality tale, of humanity's infancy and longing. Good and Evil are inextricably intertwined in human life.

"Eden" is more than "an imaginary account", MF, (24/3).
Though the authors of Genesis may make literary use of mythologies from surrounding cultures, they impose their own distinctive and inspired theology on them, expressing truths later enshrined in magisterial form - among them, about God as the Creator of all; the creaturely dependency of all creation upon God; the nature of humans as made uniquely in the image and likeness of God; the relationship of humans with God; one another and the rest of creation; the reality of sin as a refusal of creaturehood, and God's response in justice and mercy.
Moreover, interpretation of sacred scripture occurs within the tradition of the Church, which insists explicitly on some literal readings (e.g., the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist).

That "Good and Evil are inextricably intertwined in human life" does not mean that they are indistinguishable as opposites.

I note lots of interest in 'locked doors' here, John RD? Your synodal imagery seem to get closer and closer to Roy's view of hell, with its doors locked firmly from the inside. I thought it was a previous Pope, John XXIII, who finding the Church stale, cobwebbed and musty, gently pushed open the windows.

Two images of pleasant memory come to mind, the first of my parents dancing to 'Music, Music, Music', with You and Roy happily singing in the background from the same song-sheet, chirruping 'Closer! My Dear, Come Closer!'; and another with sadder although more raucous lyrics that perfectly capture your joint theology:

'Close the door; they're coming through the window.
Close the window; they're coming through the door.
Close the door; they're coming through the window.
Oh! The Room is full and won't hold any more!'

Some ecclesiology!

(With apologies to Lilli-Belle, Scotty & The Stargazers)

This is a distortion of Warhurst's argument. At no time in any of his essays has he ventured into the space of sacramentological issues that you raise. His issues, as a gifted educator in the field of policy process and production, is to point to what works and what else doesn't.

Where is the evidence that he wants a more 'democratic' Church, when my careful reading of him is that he wants a reform of management structure?

Where does he ask for anymore than clarity, honesty, integrity and efficiency? Even the question women's ordination, itself simply a matter of expanding the tradition of the Church (and NOT an issue of faith and morals) doesn't concern him?

Where indeed are the lay deacons in our Church, introduced to assist with advice and expertise that may not be available to the sacramentally ordained?

Or are you flirting with Luther and Calvin's 'Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms', itself rejected by the Magisterium that you claim to protect?

Is the soup you offer, prepared by a chef of the most exclusively Gallic provenance, so perfect and sustaining as to 'feed the hungry, cure the sick and comfort the afflicted'? Or don't such considerations matter?

'the soup you offer'

Getting things backwards again? This is the point: the Church offers the soup but some of the laity would like to make and offer their own.

‘Where is the evidence…when my careful reading’….’

‘Careful’ reading includes remembering your history lest you repeat it, although 22 June 2021 wasn’t that long ago: ‘The Church should learn from democracy’s spirit of equality and participation.’


‘Where indeed are the lay deacons in our Church’

Perhaps you could, ‘carefully’, re-read paragraph 2?


‘flirting with Luther and Calvin's 'Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms', itself rejected by the Magisterium….’’

Thought precedes action even in the secular world where decisions are supposed to be based on 'evidence' which is a mental packaging and analysis of observations. Philosophical thought precedes other thought because it seeks to make sense of them, philosophy being the art or science of how to think. Within your personal context as a baptised Catholic Christian, it would be irrational of you not to hold that the systems or structures of Catholic Christian theology precede all thinking, and therefore all action, because they modulate and moderate, philosophy. If you were a Buddhist, it would be irrational of you not to hold the same for Buddhist theology, and so on.

Una Sanctam states the obvious. By Christian reason, there are two kingdoms of thought, spiritual thought being superior to secular thought, and both kingdoms have their swords or means of implementing the duties which arise from their respective domains of thought, the word of God being sharper than a double-edged sword. If Hebrews 4:12 is correct, Una Sanctam must exist and only the Church can decide if, when and how a ‘value-neutral’ State is licit. Civil duties are the left-overs from religious duties.

'Civil duties are left-overs from religious duties'. Are they really? Not when the Feast itself has been so befouled in its preparation and presentation as to turn off the guests.

If you don't understand your own metaphor, then think of those excluded from the Feast through the bishops' pusillanimity in being bullied into acquiescence by latter-day Grand Inquisitors like yourself and the serpentine cunning of those self-same bomb manufacturers of the foul weapons you detonate that have driven so many of the hungry and starving off this page.

‘detonate’

Defuse? With some argumentation rather than hyperbole / ‘attitudinism’?

'. . . wildly and utterly wrong.' Edward? And ' '. . . it's not about the system of governance.' The article's title and content clearly concerns Church governance and the required accountability it implies.
Surely prudence is always relevant to this necessary aspect of Catholic life and the process of discernment encouraged by Pope Francis?
Further, I doubt your repeatedly alleged "Mannix ghetto mentality", recently questioned in ES 's JT Ozolins' article "Rediscovering truth..." by Bill Burke (12/2) from his acquaintance with members of BA Santamaria's Movement (supported by prominent Australian Jesuits within and beyond the Institute of Social Order) influenced Pope John Paul II's statement, let alone the Messianic secret which is highly relevant to Roy's Christological reflection.

To support your refreshing post, Edward, when the Dubia was issued, it put four concerns to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and not to Pope Francis, who issued 'Amoris Laetitiae' (2016).

In 'Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future' (Ivereigh, 2020), +Francis responds to the Dubia. In it he explains the reasoning behind the approach he took in chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia: 'There was no need to change Church law, only how it was applied' (pp. 88-89). 'Because of the immense variety of situations and circumstances people find themselves in', the Synod on the Family agreed 'on the need for case-by-case discernment' that enables pastors 'to walk with people who are living together or divorced, to help them see where God’s grace is operating in their lives, and to help them embrace the fullness of Church teaching'.

He does, however, highlight the need for pastors to discern whether people in irregular situations have sufficient knowledge and full culpability and to what extent they can receive the assistance of the sacraments in accordance with footnote 351.

This type of discernment is applied through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Along with other divorced persons I participate fully in Catholic Sacramental Life.

'[we] participate fully in Catholic Sacramental Life'

Actually, the question is whether the sacraments participate fully in us. Grace is not allowed to swamp a road block instituted by free will. As C.S. Lewis said, the doors of hell are locked from the inside.

‘who, significantly lives in the Deep South’


In Fairhope, Alabama (population 22,000), there’s a Yak The Kathmandu Kitchen where ‘First time ever, we bring the taste of traditional Nepali style’, 400 Eastern Shore Shopping Ctr, (251) 990-6192, 10 years in business.

Uber Eats advertises vindaloo delivery in Maumelle, Arkansas (population 18, 142 in 2019).

Two Brooks Farm, 404 East Court Street, Sumner, Mississippi (population 303 in 2019), 662-375-8100, sells basmati rice. I wonder what the proportion is of portly to skinny Klansmen in Sumner, Mississippi (population 303 in 2019).

Thanks for the sales pitch. I might make a move next door. Your 'culinary appeal' attracts more than your theology.

Despite his perennial gloom, Francis Armstrong posts soundly. Of course, the point of Marie-Antoinette's thoughtless frippery was that there was no cake at all to eat, which triggered the savage consequence she suffered.

I wish Francis as well as John Warhurst every encouragement for their fortitude. The struggle is long and wearying and the prize surely worthy of the effort for there will be those watching what the bishops do and holding them to account in their own way!