The Commonweal Editorial: “Crisis” Averted

Once again, I’d like to thank Michael P. for his posting the excerpt from the recent Commonweal editorial. Interestingly, I had read and reflected upon the content of the editorial along with Dr. Scott Appleby’s essay on the American Modernists early yesterday morning. For what it is worth, readers of Mirror of Justice may find it useful to know that I read Commonweal, First Things, America, the two NCRs (National Catholic Reporter and National Catholic Register), The Tablet, and Crisis, amongst other periodicals. It might be said that my reading fare is catholic. But I digress.

I found several remarks in the editorial to which Michael referenced arresting. The first is the phrase “faithful Catholics” that was placed in quotation marks by the author(s) of this particular editorial to affirm, I suppose, the fidelity of those who disagree with Church teachings on subjects such as ordination, artificial contraception, and the nature of the papacy. This assertion can lead other members of the faithful to believe that the Church’s teachings on these issues, and perhaps other matters, are flexible or ambiguous. I do not think that the Church’s teachings on these topics are as accommodating or indefinite as the editorial would imply with its juxtaposition of the phrase “faithful Catholics.” While Church teachings may be more flexible or less clear on other matters, they are not on these.

This brings me to the distinction that the editorial makes between “open and respectful disagreement” and “suppression.” There is the circumstance in which the heterodox remove themselves from full communion with the Church, and it would be a mistake to conclude, as the editorial did, that their fidelity to unmistakable Church teachings is not in question. It is, but they can do something about this dilemma as I indicated in a previous posting when Steve and I engaged one another in an earlier discussion dealing with fidelity to the Church’s teachings.

A final point I would like to raise in this posting about the editorial concerns its assertion that “History, especially the history of the Second Vatican Council, tells us that disagreement is often the work of the Holy Spirit.” This is an interesting but, nevertheless, inaccurate proclamation about the Council’s work and the documents it produced. Before drafting this posting, I reviewed the texts that the Council adopted, particularly Lumen Gentium and Dignitatis Humanae, and cannot reach the same conclusion that the editorial does about history, particularly that of the Second Vatican Council, and the work of the Holy Spirit. I acknowledge the existence of a history of dissent that ignores or disagrees with Church teachings that come from the Council, but I cannot agree that this particular history is consistent with the Council’s teachings or the work of the Holy Spirit. In making this appeal, I recall Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that the faithful must, in fact, agree, avoid dissent, and be united “in the same mind and the same judgment.” Indeed, there are some matters on which we can disagree and remain faith to the Magisterium, but surely there are other items on which we can not.    RJA sj