Perhaps some good can come out of the way in which the Vatican made such a mess of handling sex-abuse scandals over the past few years.
I get the feeling that already there are many priests, bishops and lay people who have decided not to sit back and twiddle their thumbs while expecting the Vatican to be sole protector of the integrity of the Catholic Church.
I have heard many sermons and read innumerable discussions in the past few months expounding the notion that our Church is actually its people. And that the person to whom we owe our undivided, unquestioning loyalty and devotion is not the pope nor any of the other members of the Church hierarchy, but Jesus Christ.
This does not mean, of course, that Catholics should turn their backs on the Holy Father or the Vatican, but rather to look at what we can do to further the Word of Christ and in so doing restore the integrity of our Church.
It has been said by numerous religious commentators that the sole remaining acceptable prejudice in the world today is castigation of the Catholic Church. What a damning indictment!
I firmly believe that in spite of the enormous wave of global criticism we face, Catholics should not start emulating some of our more extreme Muslim counterparts by declaring jihad on our enemies.
There is a far more effective method, I believe, that will allow each and every Catholic to show just what we are made of. That is to take personal responsibility for helping our fellow man and not to leave it to the Church by simply putting money into the collection on Sunday or just supporting a bring-and-buy cake sale. All around us there is poverty, the indignity of old age, lack of education and skills, illness and fear.
What I am suggesting is that Catholics should consider responding to criticism of our religion by deed rather than rhetoric.
I believe that this is already happening in South Africa. For example, no single entity outside the government does more to alleviate the suffering of those afflicted by HIV/Aids than the Catholic Church.
Add to that the many Catholic relief agencies and charities – such as Catholic Welfare and Development, which is the biggest non-governmental organisation in the Western Cape – and there is little doubt that the work of the Catholic Church in this country is significant.
All this is done by a relatively tiny handful of people. Bishops, priests, religious and laity – a few thousand at most.
Imagine if all of Southern Africa’s 7 million Catholics added their weight to these worthy causes? Or if they just helped neighbours, or comforted the sick and elderly. This is nothing new, after all, but something that Jesus Christ preached.
It would not take long for the world to realise that Catholicism was not just about the pope and the Vatican, but rather its people.
I believe times have changed. And so, perhaps, should the Catholic Church.
In the early days of the Church, wealthy Catholics would heed the call of popes and bishops to celebrate the glory of God by building massive, opulent cathedrals.
If today the Catholic Church somewhere decided to build a cathedral similar in size to St Peter’s in Rome, there is no doubt that the world would not see this as a monument to the glory of God, but rather a demonstration of self-indulgent excess denying millions of poor people a roof over their heads or survival from starvation.
There was also a time when it was quite appropriate for bishops, cardinals and the pope to live in palaces and wear luxuriant vestments because in those days the laity saw these as symbols of authority and leadership.
I wonder if all the pomp, ceremony and displays of wealth by the Vatican, outside of actual church services, has the same effect today?
I remember during my school years, when an archbishop would visit, we would be expected to go down on one knee and kiss his ring. But now, when I come into contact with our cardinal, bishops and archbishops, they mostly shy away from the ring-kissing, bowing and scraping and don’t particularly like to be called “Your Grace”.
In South Africa at least, all these superficial trappings of high office have been replaced with humility and the will to serve the people.
Is it not time, I wonder, for the Vatican to visibly follow suit? For the pope to look less like a head of state and more like the shepherd he is supposed to be?
Frankly, I am not convinced that if Jesus Christ returned to earth today he would drive through the streets in a popemobile, dressed in exotic finery.
Hello Chris and all,
I am the proverbial gift horse and I am now gifting you with the Vatican’s worst nightmare, now realized.
The Vatican is being set up for a much bigger fall than most are expecting. Here’s an early peak. Some amazingly damaging information about pivotal religious assertions is about to become widely available and understood. This child abuse scandal is merely proof of their absolute lack of veracity, before the real controversy is unsealed.
Following is a link to a draft-preview of my upcoming new book for parties like yourself, who are more likely to make good use of the information.
Please excuse the ads on this site, it’s a free file storage site and I’m not ready to post it to E-Book sites until it’s done.
Finishing the Mysteries of Gods and Symbols
http://www.mediafire.com/?djg5amy4mmy
Peace and Wisdom,
Seven
It’s good to have a healthy sense of tension or debate between the church as it is now and the way (we think) it was in the apostolic age, but, as Newman pointed out so eloquently, we should be very careful about the idea of returning to some imaginary age of `apostolic simplicity’, which quest has been the cause of so many heresies, from the Pelagians and the Cathars to the Fraticelli, Lutherans, Anabaptist millenarians and Anglicans (who, after early promises, inevitably `degenerate’ from simplicity to so-called pomp), indeed to the Mormons too – even if it is just a matter of a hierarchy of suits and short hair!).
There is indeed nothing at all new about your argument, Chris, particularly on the reformed side of the lamentable division of Christendom.The Catholic Church is old and new at the same time, but it is certainly old, older than any other, and proverbially one cannot `rock an old man in a child’s cradle’. Of course the church is bound in some ways to be different from the early centuries, as it has grown in wisdom as much as in human frailty, while retaining the unique teaching authority granted by Christ Himself.
I don’t think that this pope of all recent popes is under any illusion about the transitory nature of what you describe as `pomp’; rather, this manifestly shy pope consistently points far beyond himself and any self-glorification to the ancient tradition of popes, stretching far into the past and far into the future, in which chain he is fully aware he is only a single link. You seem to think `pomp and ceremony’ points to or glorifies the particular individual; I, on the contrary, see such ceremony as pointing to something far larger than the individual concerned. So-called liberal clergy, when they try to return to some imaginary age of apostolic simplicity, almost inevitably draw attention to their own individual importance – their particular `link’ (usually interpreted by wearing some ostentatiously personalised and `humble’ vestments etc) which is manifestly so much more important to them than an awareness of that wider `chain’, which I would suggest is what is really humbling. If, for example, an academic wears academic robes to an academic assembly, or a judge to a judicial gathering, this ancient uniform if anything diminishes him/her in relation to the greater context of the event. If such an academic (or a judge or soldier etc) wore some supposedly `humble’, personalised, non-academic or non-judicial outfit (we have had plenty of examples of this in the Church), he/she would only be drawing attention to him/herself and his/her `importance’. Similarly, ecclesiastical vestments, like uniforms, always point to something larger than the individual. I should have thought that you possessed sufficient wisdom to grasp this point, which is scarcely a sophisticated one, rather than reaching for a somewhat lazy, `humble’ interpretation. Perhaps the 4th of July went to your head yesterday, but do remember that even George Washington, who owned a landed estate as wel as slaves, was no egalitarian Everyman, for all the supposed republican egalitarianism of the USA, which is why it has a capital called Washington, rather than EverymanTown or EgalitarianTown.
As regards ring-kissing, etc., I also find your problem with this curious, coming so soon after the Sunday gospel reading about the woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. It does not diminish me in the slightest to kiss the ring of a bishop, or bow to someone whether ecclesiastical or lay who represents something larger than that particular person. Admittedly it is sometimes hard, indeed a real exercise in humility, to kiss the ring of some of our modern(ist) bishops, whose witness to orthodoxy is very questionable, but I have no problem in principle with this, especially as our Faith teaches that we are all, individually, Temples of the Holy Spirit, literally walking churches! I find it ironic that those churches and secular societies which have eliminated hierarchies and distinctions have not been slow to create new ones – Comrade Stalin, Comrade Mao, Comrade Mugabe et.al. It was and – given the human condition – will ever be thus.
Besides, contrary to your interpretation of such gestures, we do know that Christ scolded those who questioned when he was being honoured by the faithful, by reminding them that, unlike Himself, the poor would always with them. Indeed, I suspect that Christ, were He to have been incarnated in this age, might have valued the practical advantages of a Christmobile, as well as the incense and myrrh that accompanied His own birth and which underlined His kingship no less than His servitude, as well as the manner of His death. The one-sided, tub-thumping, sackcloth-and-ashes-meets-1960s-hippy-simplicity interpretation of Christ as outlined here is, I would suggest, very dated, not appropriate to the Catholic Church but rather to those who have broken away from it.
As regards the art treasures of the Vatican: yes, the Church is human and historical and venal, while possessing divine authority in spite of this. Its treasures have been acquired in many ways, some questionable, throughout the ages. It does not own these treasures but is merely the custodian of them. I’d far rather visit them in the Vatican and other Catholic Churches, where they are open to the world, than have them locked away for centuries in the vaults of some American or Japanese millionaire investors, or perhaps of some Nazi plutocrat like Reichmarschal Goering, whose attempts to despoil Europe and elsewhere of its treasures were seen off by the Church, along with its deadly ideology, just as she has seen off Attilla the Hun, Charles V, and Garibaldi. I suspect that a millenium from now, people will be saying the same thing as you are now,and people will be saying the same thing as I am saying now. I, however, know which side of that historical and eternal argument I am on. By then you and I and everyone on here will have left these temporal concerns and should have gained some idea of which would have been the wisest course to take. I strongly suspect that, in grappling with these age-old questions, taking the Long View is always a good guide in discerning that course.
Finally, as regards the Vatican’s mess in handling child abuse scandals, this is no more of a mess than – adjusted to the vastly different size of church – the Anglican Church in Australia’s handling of the scandal of Archbishop Peter Hollingworth of Brisbane’s moving of paedophile clergy around his diocese, for which behaviour he had to resign as Governor-General (plenty of pomp and circumstance in that office!). And one should not forget Dr Ian Paisley, the well-known Ulster firebrand preacher. Despite an apparent disdain for popish pomp and ceremony equal to your own, only this very day he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Bannside, in all the finery of the peerage, as grand indeed as any popish prelate. He also, only last week, criticised the RC Church’s handling of abuse in terms similar to your own. The scandal of child abuse is indeed horrifying, but he failed to mention his own role in the Kincora Boys’ Home scandal (do Google it) in which he and members of the Security Forces were implicated.
Please, Chris, do a little more comparative and historical homework on these issues, as well as demonstrate some awareness of how previous sacred and secular attempts at `apostolic simplicity’ failed lamentably, before running down the Catholic Church in this simplistic way.
Dear Mr Moerdyk,
In light of your article, seeds rather than rhetoric. I would just like to say that you shouldn’t worry too much about the ‘pomp, ceremony and wealth’ often displayed in the Catholic church, because really at the end of the day it’s the poor ones who are canonized! Take Dominic(now a saint) and Francis (of assissi). They are forever remembered, not Innocent III, the pope in office during their era who was known for being transported in a gold carriage about Rome, while these men went barefoot with the good news. Someone has it right in he Sainthood causes agency and this gives us reason to hope!
Regards
Lucy Rubin
Quite right too, Lucy. I am with you and Dante on nasty popes, though Innocent III had several redeeming features and was not personally corrupt. Nevertheless, the basis point I made stands. Rather Francis of Assissi and Dominic (though the latter was no great tolerator of heretics), but rather the worldly Innocent III than the crazy sackcloth-and-ashes millenarians of the Fraticelli and the Cathars.The Church always has to guard against weirdoes, speaking of which, I see the other contribution to this blog…
Donal thanks for an intelligible response, to a pompous bellicose article of no substance.
Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros Arch Bishop of Toledo when giving his riches to the poor , going about in shabby clothes, eating the same course food was accused of scandalous behavior, making an exhibition of himself.
The Cardinal received a letter in 1496 from the Roman Curia, pointing out that the city of God on earth, was for all men and all ranks; while it was wrong to seek the badge of honor to earnestly, it was also wrong to reject them too contemptuously, for each state of life had its own conditions, which were pleasing to God.
If one looks at the Gospels it seems that Jesus was not concerned about monetary wealth save for the individual’s attitude towards it. Did not Judas remark about the expensive fragrance, that the money could be better spent on the poor? The Protestant revolutionaries had similar ideas. Now it seems we are in the age of the emancipated ninny, sprouting the same rhetoric.
That aside, Ximenese been obedient, saying Mass in vestments of silk and cloth of gold, a monk preached before him on the vain pride of ecclesiastics who betrayed the doctrine of Christ, by succumbing to the seductions of wealth. Anyway after Mass the monk was sent to the sacristy where Ximenese was removing his vestments, under the beautiful chasuble, the immaculate alb, was his old patched up Franciscan robe which this he set aside for a moment, revealing a hair shirt next to his skin.
The issue here is that there is a fine line, between excessive displays and excessive humility, both would weaken authority. Unless one knows the facts of attitude of our Pope, bishops or priests, it would be considered foolish, by reasonable standards of fairness, to condemn a mode of behavior or dress that one has no factual knowledge of the attitude of the adorned.
If anyone would like a reference to Ximenese, please let me know…
Seven is obviously anti-religion, per se, and his pdf document is not reader friendly in any sense whatsoever. This one needs more than prayer…
Donal gets it wrong because I don’t see Mr Moerdyk punting for ‘apostolic simplicity’ of a bygone era. There does now seem to be a weightier argument for Vatican II’s concept of Church = people of God. This is what Donal does not seem to be able to get his mind around and thus ignores the ‘deeds rather than rhetoric’ argument, ending with a shallow conclusion.
Malcolm jumps in at the mere smell of a ‘fight’, demonstrating his ignorance of the meaning of words, all totally outside the argument for “Deeds rather than Rhetoric”.
I wonder if the real motivation for these responses is that it is easier to put pen to paper with rhetoric than to take personal responsibility for the disadvantaged ones.
As for those 7 million Catholics that you challenge to get personally involved, it is easier for the ‘haves’ to reach into the pocket. It has been my experience that the ‘havenots’ are sometimes distrustful of the ‘hand-outs’.
Are you demonstrating the meaning of projection, Rosemary?
or planting “seeds” Malcolm
Weeds for sure.
Rosemary – I am all too aware of bogus interpretations of `Vatican II = People of God’ and can more than get my mind around the motivation for them, along with other such organisations – the `We are Church’ movement and the like. Such ideas have been around for centuries, rooted not least in the reformation churches, which offer many alternatives to people who want this sort of eccesiastical set-up. Neither is there anything shallow about my conclusion. On the contrary, history offers a reminder not to draw shallow or superficial conclusions based on a manifestly false interpretation of Vatican Council. Nowhere does the Vatican Council set up the `People of God’ in opposition to the teaching authority of the bishops in communion with the Pope. Rosemary should try getting her mind around this, as well as what the Council had to say about the liturgy, most of which had been conveniently ignored as being against the `spirit’ of Vatican II. Based on her contributions on here, however, I suspect that she is unable to understand what the Council was about, choosing rather to see what she wants to see. Rosemary’s views are as dated as Cuban heels and flared trousersAs ever, in the long history of the Church, time will tell. .
Ooops I mean….. wheat. Sorry Rosemary weed has other connotations.
I used to wonder why the church, in her venerable wisdom, had a memorial feast day for the dedication of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. What’s the big deal? It’s just a church building right? OK, it’s bigger and older and more beautiful than most churches, but so what. The church is really the people right? Well, yes and no. Certainly St Paul talks about us being ‘living stones’ being built up into the ‘temple’, but that image only makes sense if there is such a thing as a physical temple made up of real stones.
So why should Catholics build beautiful churches? Lots of reasons. First of all, our faith is an incarnational faith. We believe that the Son of God took flesh of the Blessed Virgin and entered this physical realm of human history. That transaction within history registers as the expression of God’s everlastingly beautiful glory and power alive in this world. So a Catholic Church that is beautiful and built to last is a witness to the incarnation. It’s beauty also represents the sacrifices of time, talent and treasure to build such a temple fit for God. “This is not just a meeting hall!” the beautiful Catholic Church proclaims. “This is a temple where God dwells in our midst as Christ his Son came to dwell in our midst.”
Furthermore, so many churches were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary because she, in a most unique way, is the temple of God on earth. She is beautiful. She is full of grace. She is transcendent and eternal because of the graces received from her Son. So too, the Catholic Church should be a silent witness to these truths. Here we have built a temple that is beautiful and transcendent and full of God’s presence and grace. Here the Son of God dwells in his sacramental presence. This great Church is therefore a reminder of the Blessed Virgin, and if a reminder of her, then a reminder that her destiny is the destiny of each one of us. We too are called to be temples of the Holy Spirit. We too are called to be transformed by hard work, sacrifice and God’s grace to become everlastingly beautiful. We too are called to an eternal destiny.
Here’s another reason: a beautiful Catholic church proclaims our values. It says, “This church is going to last 1000 years. It will be so beautiful that no one will dare to tear it down.We believe in the eternal truths that are so beautiful and true and everlasting that no one can ever destroy them. Furthermore, we believe in values that are everlasting and never change. We aim to live lives that are as solid and dignified and beautiful and true and everlasting as this building. Our doctrinal truths, our moral truths, our love, our life, our joy–all of these are everlasting and this church speaks silently and eloquently that what we hold dear we are willing to invest in, and we are willing to sacrifice much to build a witness that will last long after we are gone. This will speak to believers and unbelievers a truth that is beyond words and which will lift them to prayer which is beyond words.
In every age people spend money building beautiful temples to their gods. If you want to see what gods a society worships look around for the beautiful buildings. Which buildings in our cities are built with marble, fountains, high ceilings, silver and gold fittings, oriental carpets and fine furnishings? Banks and insurance companies mostly. There you find the temples we have built to our gods. Then look at so many modern Catholic Churches–built on the cheap with tawdry materials, cut corners, shoddy workmanship, poor design by ignorant architects who are working for their own glory trying to ‘be creative’. A beautiful, traditional Catholic Church protests against all of that vulgarity and low life with great dignity and power.
A beautiful Catholic Church speaks all these truths silently in stone. When we build temporary, secular looking structures we say exactly the opposite. When we build in cheap materials, cut corners, choose poor stuff, tacky figurines and go the way of plastic, mass produced fiberglass, then we are (often literally) building in wood, hay and stubble. Why are we surprised therefore, that our Catholics have a faith that is cheap, temporary, second rate and falling apart? Our faith is incarnational. I believe that if we invested more money in building and maintaining our beautiful buildings that we would actually be investing in a stronger faith for the future.
The last point (and I could go on) is that a church is not just a meeting place. It is a house of prayer. It is a place that becomes hallowed with prayer. Therefore it must be a place that lifts the heart to prayer. The human heart is vulnerable to beauty. The beauty of worship and the beauty of a church building lifts even the hardest heart to prayer. In a beautiful church people’s hearts are opened. They stop and gaze and lift their eyes upward and as they do the fall to their knees, and even the most unlearned stumble and mumble the words their stuttering tongues seek to find: Holy, Holy Holy is the Lord God of Hosts.
Posted by Fr Longenecker at Thursday, August 05, 2010 ShareThis
Needless to add, Rosemary has as ever `got it wrong’. The fact that she thinks otherwise is a manifestation of the usual modernist arrogance and condescension. I really don’t think she is at all capable of understanding what my response was trying to convey. This only underlines the unfortunate fact that some people are so ideologically blinded that dialogue would appear to be futile.
We are all challenged to put into practice the faith we profess, but we cannot abandon the requirements of ortho-doxy in order to concentrate on ortho-praxis (if that is indeed what Mr. Moerdyk is suggesting here).
Whatever the problems (and Mr. Moerdyk has not given a convincing account of them), the solution is not to put the Church “on hold” while seeking to follow Our Lord. That was the Protestant response to the crises and scandals of the 16th century.
The Pope does not wear “exotic finery” when he travels by popemobile, and “exotic finery” is not a suitable way of referring to liturgical vestments. No one has ever suggested a Catholic “jihad on our enemies”. The Vatican has not “made a mess of handling sex-abuse scandals” which arose as a result of the acts and defaults of priests and bishops in dioceses in (primarily) the USA and Ireland. Catholics do not confuse the honour and respect offered to the Pope and the bishops with the worship and devotion that are to be offered to God alone.
Nor do Catholics have split loyalties. Our Lord established the Apostles under Peter to make disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them “to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt.28:20). He entrusted His mission to them: “as the Father sent me so am I sending you” (Jn.20:21). He conferred authority on them: “he who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me and he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Lk.10:16). He conferred power on them through His Holy Spirit (Lk.24:49; Ac.1:8).
The Church is not an embarrassing inconvenience. She is an inescapable necessity. She is the bride of Christ and she is our mother. She is the only sure repository and guarantee of the saving truth (Jn.16:13; 1Tim.3:15).
Mr. Moerdyk has a good point to make about our Christian duty, but the implied antithesis between faith and works, or between the Church and God, are, frankly, unCatholic as are the Puritan overtones of his article.
Agree with all you write Martin. I am concerned that there is a highlighting of Myths which Mr Moerdyk promotes, that does not stand up to scrutiny.
No one minds corroborating evidence, which is nonexistent with Mr Moerdyk.
It is tiresome and annoying to read the ranting allegations of subjective opinion that could be read at all ant-catholic websites.
(Snip from 16 above) Nor do Catholics have split loyalties.
This has to be the oxymoron of the Century.
There can be no antithesis between the People of God and God, just as there is no antithesis between God and All Creation. There certainly can be antithesis between the institution, the system of governance and the Mind of God.
Jesus is Lord – not the system, not the institution, not the “twelve” (and if it had been left to them we would hardly have got off the ground), Jesus is Lord not even the Vatican can override that FACT.
Rosemary says: Jesus is Lord not even the Vatican can override that FACT.
Nor can you, Rosemary, and its about time you cease your sneering at Our Lord Church and the structures He established and the 12, Our Lord commissioned to teach and preach with His Authority.