More on Governance and Unity

I would like to thank Eduardo for his patience in following up on his August 31^st posting. I just returned from a short business trip to Italy, but I have had some time to reflect on what he said regarding Church governance and unity while I was traveling.

First of all, I would like to identify what I think Eduardo and I hold in common on the points he raised. First of all, these issues that we MOJ members have been discussing dealing with ecclesial governance and unity will likely be debated for some time. While waiting for my plane back to the US at Fiumicino Airport, I had a prolonged discussion with an Episcopalian priest who was returning from a pilgrimage to Rom and Ephesus. We discussed at some length the evolving and growing divide that the Episcopalian Church is presently experiencing. In this discussion, we both acknowledged that this division is deepening and that the debate about it will not disappear any time soon.

I think another position he and I likely share is the fact that each member of the Church is a sinner. Clearly, we are tempted to exercise our free will in ways that we know contravene what God asks of us; moreover, we sometimes take action on these temptations and commit sin. No person is immune from this. Holders of ecclesiastical office, future saints, and we ordinary folk—lay, religious, and clerical—are not immune.

He and I also agree that we disagree or likely disagree on particular issues. But it is not my position within the medium of MOJ to delve into his soul, or he into mine on particular matters. The appropriate forum for this probing is between a person and one’s pastor, confessor, or bishop. Having made this point, I think MOJ is an appropriate medium to present and defend our respective positions in more general terms. And I now take the occasion to do so.

The matters of human sinfulness, reconciliation with God and the neighbor, the forgiveness of sin, and salvation are issues affecting every person (whether he or she acknowledges this or not is another matter) with which ecclesial governance is concerned. Interestingly, the law—both God’s law and, in some contexts, human law—exercises roles regarding these issues. As St. Augustine concluded in one of his sermons, the Church—the Body of Christ, the People of God, and the communion of saints—is the place (he used the image of the sailing ship) where the faithful acknowledge the essence of their being, their unity with one another and God, and the means by which salvation occurs.

Eduardo posits that one can still be a Catholic “in some sense” even if he or she were to completely sever ties with the Church. I assume from what he says that such a person has been baptized but subsequently removes himself or herself from the People of God, etc. through the exercise of free will. However, in accordance with the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium, such a person, while remaining “in the bosom of the Church” in a bodily sense, does not remain in its heart. The same Dogmatic Constitution further indicates that those who refuse to remain in the Church cannot be saved without returning to the heart. Implicit in this is the possibility that one can return through recognition of past error and reconcile with God and the Church established by the Son.

So, “in some sense” Eduardo is on track. But his point is on track only if it takes into account what the Second Council, relying on the Creed, stated regarding membership in the Church: one is fully incorporated into it by accepting

“her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and through union with her visible structure are joined to Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. This joining is effected by the bonds of professed faith, of the sacraments, of ecclesiastical government, and of communion.” 

A person may detour from this and still return home up to the last moment of his or her life in this world. But, should he or she consciously remain on this self-chosen diversion, as I think Eduardo suggests, then the membership of such an individual in the Church can legitimately be called into question.   RJA sj