Out of the Ruins (of Theory?)

Three years ago, Creighton theology prof R.R. Reno wrote In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity, in which he argued "that Episcopalians should stay put and endure the diminishments of Christianity in our time." It seems he now has some explaining to do, since he was just received into the Catholic Church this fall. The explanation he offers ("Out of the Ruins" in the current First Things) is of particular relevance to the ongoing discussions we have on Mirror of Justice regarding the nature and possibility of Catholic legal theory. Reno explains:

Modern Christianity is modern precisely in its great desire to compensate for what it imagines to be the superannuation, impotence, and failure of apostolic Christianity with a new and improved idea, theory, or theology. The disaster is not the improving impulse. I certainly wish that all Christians would expect more from their teachers and leaders. The problem is the source of the desired improvement. For Newman, "theory" is a swear word because it connotes the ephemera of mental life, ephemera easily manipulated according to fantasy and convenience. Yet in my increasing disgruntlement [with the Episcopal Church], there I was, more loyal to my theory of staying put than to the actual place that demanded my loyalty. It was an artifact of my mind that compelled me to stay put. Unable to love the ruins of the Episcopal Church, I was forced to love my idea of loving the ruins. With this idea I tried to improve myself, after the fashion of a modern theologian.

At the Mass of reception, a non-Catholic friend asked Reno what it felt like to become a Catholic. Reno responded that it "felt like being submerged into the ocean." The ocean, of course,

needs no justification. It needs no theory to support the movement of its tides. In the end, as an Episcopalian I needed a theory to stay put, and I came to realize that a theory is a thin thread easily broken. The Catholic Church needs no theories. She is the mother of theologies; she does not need to be propped up by theologies. As Newman put it in one of his Anglican essays, "the Church of Rome preoccupies the ground." She is a given, a primary substance within the economy of denominationalism. One could rightly say that I became Catholic by default. . . . Mater ecclesia, she needed neither reasons, nor theories, nor ideas from me.

Obviously, theories constructed out of a perceived need to justify the Church are far different than theories constructed to explain the Church's relationship with secular institutions (e.g., the legal system). But I can't help but wonder if Reno's caution regarding the "easily manipulated ephemera" of theory finds support in the ease with which the Church's teaching is invoked in service of pre-existing political and legal agendas on both the "right" and the "left." As we seek to develop Catholic legal "theory," we must remember to start with the Church, allowing theory to emanate from the Church's reality, rather than starting with theory, molding the Church to fit within our preconceptions. Easier said than done, I realize.

Rob