I just read an article from the conservative Catholic journal First Things entitled, charmingly, “Why Catholics Don’t Care.” As I’m sure the author would cast me among his rabble of careless Catholics, I doubt I was his intended audience. But I’m glad I read it, as it lent some insights. I’ve long known that there are some whose response to my own Catholic practice could be summed up with a simple question: “Why don’t you just leave?” After all, I do take issue with a number of statements and teachings that have come out of the Vatican. And I guess it’s somewhat generous of the author not to lay the blame for my lousy approach to Catholicism entirely at my own door. After all, any number of unorthodox and rebellious priests, bishops, and religious educators have been leading poor befuddled Catholics like myself astray since the second Vatican council. According to the author, if I’d had the good fortune to have sound, orthodox religious teachers throughout my youth and young adulthood, I would be a “dutiful foot soldier of Rome,” in perfect obedience to all teachings and edicts issued out of the Vatican. What a wonderful world that would be!
But obviously that didn’t happen, so let’s return to planet Earth. First of all, I’m surprised at First Things for this lapse of intellectual rigor. I’m no fan of First Things, but I do ascribe to them a certain quality of writing and analysis. To publish an article that so blithely equates correlation with causation is an unusually poor showing. It’s just lazy. And to equate faithful Catholic practice with dutiful foot soldiery is really appalling. How can one look at the twentieth century, even briefly, and claim that rigid obedience to authority is a good thing? From the broader canvasses of the Holocaust and the Cold War, to the horrifying lapses of moral integrity in my own Church, I certainly hope that any discerning person with a conscience would know that dutiful and unquestioning acceptance of authority, no matter where it comes from, is simply unacceptable in a postmodern world.
There are bigger questions on the table, though. Back in August, Damon Linker’s cover story for the New Republic entitled “Pope Francis versus the Vatican” took a good look at the gaps between the public perception and the actual reality of our incredibly popular new pontiff. I feel a number of his points are well taken. I don’t think Pope Francis is trying to mislead anyone into thinking that he’s going to stir up some kind of doctrinal revolution, but that doesn’t mean that the hoi polloi aren’t picking up that idea and running with it. I found it somewhat surprising that the LGBTQ journal “The Advocate” named Pope Francis as their Man of the Year, given the fact that exactly none of his statements have refuted the Catholic stance on homosexual acts as intrinsically disordered and against the natural law. If anyone thinks that Pope Francis is going to be officiating over same-sex marriages anytime soon, I’m pretty sure they’re going to be disappointed.
Hopes are high among many liberals for a sweeping reform of Catholic doctrine, but for my part, I see no reason to expect anything of the sort. The majority of the reforms that most people are yearning to see are intrinsically intertwined; if you say homosexual sex is okay, then the Church’s entire anthropology of sexuality collapses. The same would happen if you changed teaching on artificial contraception, abortion, divorce, and even women’s ordination. This is hardly a novel issue; church teaching on sexual ethics has been a sticky wicket since the days of St Paul. To take it apart and reconstruct it completely can hardly be high on any Vatican theologian’s priority list. There are numerous theologians outside the hierarchy who have taken a stab at it, but by and large their efforts have been unequivocally condemned by the powers that be. Sorry, Margaret Farley.
But back to Linker and his TNR article…he expresses surprise and confusion that liberal Catholics are so taken with Pope Francis when he’s done nothing to promise the reforms for which they hunger so voraciously. There are reforms that will take place under Pope Francis’s papacy, but they will be primarily structural, and not sexy enough to land him on the front of Time magazine. Upon further reflection, however, Linker claims to have solved the puzzle of the widespread liberal adoration of Pope Francis. In a recent post entitled “What Do Liberal Catholics Want?” he makes the claim that liberal Catholics don’t expect Pope Francis to change doctrine at all…and they don’t care. According to a conversation he had with a self-proclaimed “progressive Catholic” named Trish during an interview on NPR, Linker was told that Catholics don’t care about doctrine. He recalls the conversation: “The pope’s warm, welcoming words are “everything,” Trish said, because doctrine, including that covering contraception and divorce, is ‘useless.'”
This exchange has apparently led Linker to believe that progressive Catholics have no use for doctrine at all. Which, of course, leads him to the response that I recounted earlier: why continue calling yourself Catholic? “What’s the point of staying put when you’re utterly indifferent to so much of what the Catholic Church (and on contraception at least, pretty much only the Catholic Church) proclaims to be true?” Linker asks. And he goes on to claim that such utter disregard for doctrine is surely a portent of doom for the future of the Catholic Church. You hear that? We’re DOOOOOOMED!!!!
You know, maybe I should just stop reading religious commentaries altogether. At the risk of being uncharitable, these articles are STUPID. This dichotomous approach to Catholic faith and practice is absolutely useless to anyone living in the real world. I don’t care if you’re a raging progressive or a pietist of the first order; no one is in complete alignment with Catholic teaching in everything that they do, including the hierarchy itself. No one is totally right. That’s not doctrine, people: that’s DOGMA. According to the Catholic faith, it’s the whole reason Jesus decided to show up in the first place.
Claiming that someone who uses artificial contraception automatically has no use for doctrine is reductionist to the point of ridiculousness. Of the same token, sorry Trish, but claiming that you love what Pope Francis is saying but that doctrine is useless, is every bit as ludicrous. Everything Francis says is steeped in Catholic doctrine. If the word “doctrine” has gotten a bad rap in the past fifty years, we really need to remedy that. The vast majority of things that I encounter that “feel right” or “sound true” can be found somewhere in the annals of my faith. And this is an area in which I think Pope Francis can do real good in the world. He’s taking Catholic doctrine and showing people (a) why it’s important, and (b) why it makes sense in the first place. As for trying to figure out what liberal Catholics want, I advise Linker to take a step away from that subject, as he’s not doing a very good job with it. And the Vatican already has that covered, with its world-wide survey on the Catholic Church’s views on sexual ethics and matters of family.
And finally, for the record, I’m a big fan of doctrine. The Sacraments are incredibly important to me in the way I live my life and interact with people. I look to the Liturgy of the Word to remind me of the person I want to be, and to the Liturgy of the Eucharist to give me the strength I need to try to become that person. Doctrine helps give shape to the truths that emerge from life and the grace I experience in the world. But I refuse to worship doctrine. Doctrine and faith are not synonymous. And no, Mr. Linker, I don’t think that such a statement indicates that it’s time for me to become Episcopalian. I think it indicates that I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
But I’d rather not end on a nasty note. So, you know, peace be with you.
God Shuffled His Feet 