Dissenting Catholics, Revisited

Still dissenting after all these years
The Tablet Interview
Theo Hobson

As a monk who, at 90, can claim a reasonable degree of acquaintance with both God and the Church, Sebastian Moore is well placed to question where the latter might be mistaken, in the eyes of the former. He talks to Theo Hobson

This is an interesting interview,in the January 12th issue of The Tablet.  To read the interview, click here.  Some excerpts follow:

Sebastian Moore OSB chose a good way
of reminding the world that he’s still
going strong: combining his ninetieth
birthday party last month with a book
launch. It was a cut above most religious book
launches – not many are hosted by film stars
(his great-nephews are Ralph and Joseph
Fiennes), and other relatives were on hand
to provide theological ballast (his nephew is
Professor Nicholas Lash). This Benedictine
monk has been rather a maverick since the
Sixties, and this spirit is utterly undimmed.
His new book, The Contagion of Jesus: doing
theology as if it mattered, is animated by a very
distinctive voice: lively, frank, impatient of
humbug. There is a real sense of excitement,
of hope for Christian renewal: “We need a new
Pentecost. If the Church came alive again in
the Spirit, the New Age would begin to look
very old hat… ‘Come, Holy Spirit!’, we piously
pray. I wonder what would happen if she did!”
    ...
In Liverpool he began to question aspects
of Church teaching. “In the early Sixties
I totally accepted the Church’s line on sex.
I was more interested in other issues –
in a way I’m lazy, intellectually: I only worry
about things that worry me. In Liverpool a
brilliant young priest, Paddy Fitzpatrick,
radicalised me on birth control. We formed
a group of people – professionals, a few priests
– we became known by The Guardian as ‘the
Northern Rising’. We wrote a paper on the issue
of contraception that we sent to Rome – it
turned out to be one of hundreds, all pressing
for change. And it seemed as if this reform
was imminent, and then at the last minute
the pope [Paul VI] went into reverse.”
    ...
His dissenting views on sex did not abate;
in fact they grew stronger, especially since the
late Nineties, when he came across the work
of James Alison, and agreed that the Church’s
teaching on homosexuality cried out for reform.
Alison also alerted him to the work of
the Catholic anthropologist Réné Girard,
who argues that all human violence can be
boiled down to the practice of scapegoating,
and that Christianity is the unique cure for
this. In his new book Moore accuses the
Church’s teaching of colluding in the scapegoating
of homosexuals, and also of disdaining
femininity (here he is influenced by the
work of Tina Beattie).
But doesn’t he feel that he’s in a contradictory
position, as an ordained member of the
Church who is so opposed to a large aspect
of its teaching? “Well, I simply point out the
difficulties in the position. If you look at the
Catechism on homosexuality it’s very interesting
– they repeat the official position but
they start by saying, ‘We don’t know what it
is, we know that it is not chosen’ – and then
there’s what I call the ‘nevertheless’ clause:
nevertheless the teaching stands. It just isn’t
a solid teaching.” Is the Church capable of the
sort of re-thinking he demands? “It’s very
difficult for this vast, humongous worldwide
institution to re-think, but the irony is, if you
compare the situation in Anglicanism, that
the Catholic Church is in theory more able to
rethink, because it’s less tied to Scripture. Instead
it has to ask: ‘is homosexuality unnatural,
inhuman, against the natural law?’”
Has his difficulty with church teaching ever
led him to question the very concept of institutional
orthodoxy, to think that it has a dark
side? “Well, theologians are rather accommodating
creatures. Karl Rahner, for instance,
is a very orthodox theologian, but he says somewhere
that there is a dark side to the intellectual
history of the Church – that it has
crucified people on absolutes that have turned
out not to be absolutes. And that certainly is
still there in relation to sexual teaching.”
A point he makes strongly in the book is
that the Church’s view of sexuality is distorted
by the enforced celibacy of the priesthood.
“The celibate priesthood has clearly got to go,”
he tells me. “That is an emerging point of view.
Celibacy’s basically a monastic thing, but the
priesthood is a ministry. To put it simply, Pope
Gregory VII monasticated the entire secular
clergy. It’s been very counterproductive to wed
these two elements together – to make celibacy
the condition of this job. Celibacy makes
sense in a community – of course we don’t
tuck up together in pairs, after Compline.”