The monthly reading group I've been a part of for many years has been reading and discussing Newman's great book, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. In Part VI, Newman makes some statements that are, I think, quite essential in appreciating his thinking and his eventual conversion to Catholicism (and, yes, he repeatedly refers to his leaving Anglicanism to enter the Catholic Church as "conversion"). He writes:
I have spoken of my firm confidence in my position; and now let me state more definitely what the position was which I took up, and the propositions about which I was so confident. These were three:—
1. First was the principle of dogma: my battle was with liberalism; by liberalism I mean the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments. This was the first point on which I was certain. Here I make a remark: persistence in a given belief is no sufficient test of its truth; but departure from it is at least a slur upon the man who has felt so certain about it. In proportion, then, as I had in 1832 a strong persuasion of the truth of opinions which I have since given up, so far a sort of guilt attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but for all the various proceedings which were the consequence of it. But under this first head I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main principle of the movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial love without the fact of a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme Being. What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and I hold in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to the end. (emphasis added).
If I understand Newman correctly, he is saying that at a young age he grasped the fact that dogma is essential, and any form of Christianity that rejects the necessity and nature of dogma is doomed to be tossed and turned on the waves of popular opinion, fads, trends, emotions, and any number of assorted vagaries. "The vital question," Newman wrote about his focus as a reformer within Anglicanism, "was how were we to keep the Church from being liberalized?" (Part III). In a note explaining in more detail what he meant by "liberalism", Newman wrote:
Whenever men are able to act at all, there is the chance of extreme and intemperate action; and therefore, when there is exercise of mind, there is the chance of wayward or mistaken exercise. Liberty of thought is in itself a good; but it gives an opening to false liberty. Now by Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among such matters are first principles of whatever kind; and of these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word.
This is interesting on many counts, but I quote it here as an introduction to a generally dreadful example of such arrogant liberalism, an opinion piece title, "Losing faith in Catholic Church's direction", by Bonnie Erbe (The Korea Times, Nov. 18, 2010). The opening paragraph provides a good sense of Erbe's skewed perspective:
There's a raging debate about the state of the Catholic Church in America. Some Church officials still cling to the hope that massive influxes of recent immigrants will fill the pews left empty by more educated, fallen-away parishioners. But clearly the church has receded as a religious and cultural force, like a steroid-pumped bicep to a withering muscle.
The educated people, you see, are leaving the Church. "As long as the Vatican forces priests to remain celibate," she claims further on, "it will have an ever-greater shortage of priests in educated countries." Overlooked, for some reason, is the fact that education in the United States, especially public education and most especially higher education, has largely viewed Catholicism as a backwards, irrational, bigoted, sexist, and embarrasing religion for several decades now. Ask most "educated" Catholics who have left the Church in recent years why they no longer practice the Faith, and they will almost always mention how mean and behind the times are the Church's teachings about sexuality, morality, women's ordination, and such. Query them about their actual understanding of Church doctrine and practice and you'll usually discover a glaring lack of basic knowledge.
For example, a friend of mine was recently talking to a lapsed Catholic who had been condescendingly referring to his many years of teaching CCD back in the 1980s; he had since escaped from Romish restrictions and had since ascended to some higher form of spiritual enlightenment. My friend, curious about this forsaken mother lode of Catholic learning, asked straightfaced: "Oh, then you could explain to me the difference between actual grace and sanctifying grace, couldn't you?" A blank-faced pause was followed by the irritated admission: "I don't know what you're talking about." Par for the course.
But Erbe, just as cluelessly, thinks she has it figured: it is dogma and belief in objective truth that is destroying the Catholic Church in the U.S.:
Dogmatic, dictatorial churches do not resound with today's spirituality, and young people are not clamoring to join them. So sending a message that says, in essence, "Follow my rules or go to hell" might be a good way of retaining older parishioners used to such harsh boundaries. But as elderly parishioners die off, they take the church's message with them.
Ah yes, "today's spirituality", a sure admission of chronological snobbery and bad thinking. It brings to mind Chesterton's remark about modernism in All Things Considered (1908):
The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is specially up to date or particularly "in the know." To flaunt the fact that we have had all the last books from Germany is simply vulgar; like flaunting the fact that we have had all the last bonnets from Paris. To introduce into philosophical discussions a sneer at a creed's antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady's age. It is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.
As has been pointed about some ten million times by numerous observors (many of them educated!), the churches and communions that are dying, here and in other parts of the West, are not the "dogmatic, dictorial" ones. Rather, the non-dogmatic, sentimental, doctrinally vacuous, and "inclusive" Christian groups are closing shop, and to the degree that a particular parish has gulped the lukewarm Kool-Aid of this insipid snobbishness, they too are often following suit. This is not to blindly insist that orthodox Catholics and parishes are somehow free from conflicts, clashes, and problems. If one wishes to completely avoid those issues, you must opt out of the human race. But Erbe, while seeing there is a disease, doesn't bother to look for the real source of the virus, perhaps because she is so enamored with bashing any sort of authority (save her own, obviously) or doctrinal certainly (save her own, conveniently):
Church leaders blame shrinking parishes on a shortage of priests, in some cases. But making that argument is like blaming the hen for the egg. There would be no shortage of priests (or nuns, for that matter) if there weren't a shortage of congregants. And the nun shortage is particularly egregious, because their formerly free or cheap labor held down the price of the fabulous education provided by Catholic schools. Fewer children in Catholic schools will ultimately result in fewer adults staying with the Church.
Teased out, the logical conclusion of this understanding is a deluded revisionist history that goes something like this: sometime in the late 1960s, the Catholic Church in the West, which had been flourishing and growing due to its liberalizing and modernizing tendencies (I refer here to philosophical and religious notions), suddenly embraced traditional, dogmatic stances and medieval, dictatorial practices. These have lasted up the present day, and have caused nuns to flee their habits, monks to escape their orders, priests to drop out and pursue marriage, and the laity to latch onto contraptives, co-habitation, divorce, and other modern joys with an ecstatic, liberated fervor. Yep, believe it or not, the collapse of religious orders (especially women's religous) in the late 1960s was because of too much talk about dogma, sin, and hell.
Yeah, right. History says otherwise, and the facts today bear it out: the religious orders that are bursting at the seams are those whose seams hold together habits, not Nun Action Wear, and whose members are, on average, some forty or fifty years younger than the enlightened, educated nuns who can't be bothered to contemplate sanctifying grace, but host workshops devoted to crystals, Gaia, and Zen Buddhism. A November 2006 article in TIME magazine described the rapid growth of orthodox orders a "curious phenomenom", much like, I suppose, the curious physical phenomenom that occurs when a person stops susisting on Happy Meals and Slurpies and starts eating veggies and begins to exercise on a regular basis. "And although the extreme conservatism of a nun's life may seem wholly countercultural for young American women today," wrote Sahannon Taggart, in her November 2006 article, "that is exactly what attracts many of them, say experts and the women themselves." Oh, sure, talk to the women themselves! Why not just talk to Bonnie Erbe? After all, why bother with facts and reality when you have a molding, scolding meta-narrative to peddle?
G. K. Chesterton wrote, in Heretics, "Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. . . . Trees have no dogmas." Folks like Erbe do, in fact, have dogmatic beliefs, including the belief that dogma is always bad. They also hold, with blind faith that would make a mystic shudder, that Pope Benedict XVI is a backwards, reactionary, narrowminded cad whose authoritarian nastiness is matched only by his nostalgic closemindedness:
And since Pope Benedict clearly looks to the past for spiritual guidance instead of referring to the past but simultaneously peering into the future, people who have choices will choose to leave.
Which doesn't, in the least, explain passages such as this, found in a document titled Spe Salvi:
Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their gods, they were “without God” and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future. In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing)[1]: so says an epitaph of that period. In this phrase we see in no uncertain terms the point Paul was making. In the same vein he says to the Thessalonians: you must not “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Th 4:13). Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness. Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well. So now we can say: Christianity was not only “good news”—the communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our language we would say: the Christian message was not only “informative” but “performative”. That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known—it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life. ...
Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes for us a “proof” of the things that are still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future. ...
Erbe really should read it: it's what an educated person would do.
One part of the article you didn't quote, Carl, I think is worth a mention.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt said, "a shrinking Roman Catholic Church is no reason to consider a more liberal stance."
Right on the mark, in my opinion. I suppose we could ask Erbe about the Vatican response to the closing of Churches in (what are now) Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc by the Muslims in 8th century and onward. I suspect she might consider the Crusades a little too medieval.
The history of the Catholic Church began with a handful of persecuted apostles and is what it is today, some 2000 years later. A study of the opposition to the Church throughout that time from within and without would be very instructive for Erbe, I think, to gain some perspective on Church doctrine and discipline.
But to place the emphasis on numbers betrays a massive lack of understanding of what the Church is. Erbe's thinking is sadly not uncommon even in the hierarchy of the Church in America and is based on (Protestant Mega Church style) marketing principles and a franchise mentality at best, and a hard-core doctrinal dissent at worst. The idea we've heard expressed elsewhere is a fear that young people will "find their spirituality elsewhere." Just like they will find their entertainment on another channel or their cellular air-time with another carrier. Let's change our Church programming to attract new parishioners.
It has been awhile but I can faintly recall my youth. It was a different time, no doubt, but there is one constant with young people, particularly in their teenage years. Just as I could, they can smell hypocrisy and pandering from miles away. Truth with conviction they will always give a hearing, whether they believe or not, but we must never underestimate the ability of young people to be inspired by a high ideal or standard, and their energy to strive for it. The World Youth Day events of the past decades should have taught us that much, if we have forgotten our own youth.
That is why the facts contradict Erbe, as you have pointed out Carl. And her estimate of Pope Benedict betrays a real ignorance (willful?) of his message.
What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God.
-Pope Benedict XVI, from his address at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers 2008 Papal visit to America.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080419_st-joseph-seminary_en.html for the entire text which was one of his greatest addresses to young people, in my opinion.
The real irony is that while we are still seeing the aftershocks and fall-out from many decades of thinking like that of Erbe, the Church has already passed such people by. What they see as a reach to the past is in reality the already emerging future.
Posted by: LJ | Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 01:56 AM
Great article Carl! I am going to have to re-read this one more then a few times. I could write for hours on this but WHERE IS THE PIETY IN SOME NON-CATHOLIC PEOPLE (like the article talks about). Just because they can memorize 10,000 verses and think they have a (I will say it) personal relationship, what makes them think they are MORE smart, wise, holy, charitable, humane, generous, loving, intelligent, prophetic, eloquent, humble, saintly, and for the icing on the cake happier then ALL past or living CATHOLICS. I believe the term "personal relationship" is sophomoric conservative/reformation politics and rhetoric.
Posted by: Todd Newbold | Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 04:07 AM
I believe the term "personal relationship" is sophomoric conservative/reformation politics and rhetoric. - Todd Newbold
What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God. - Pope Benedict XVI
Hmmmm.
Posted by: LJ | Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 03:46 PM
LJ -
Your right, I was out of line. If I may, I will take the bait, here are some examples - personal, personal relationship, private, private matter, private property, personal issue, private amongst my family, respect our privacy, i want my privacy, personally, personal decision, private talks, private guidance, more more more..........
I think the Catholic Church is the most open Church in regards to teachings about ethics, morals, theology, philosophy, liturgy, and what the articles theme is about DOGMA.
These other churches hide all their beliefs probably because its a personal issue :)
Posted by: Todd Newbold | Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 03:49 AM
LJ -
I just read the Erbe article. She seems like a great accountant. I believe relative secularism is creating an America of almost 400 million prophets, theologians, philosophers, ministers, and seers. Everybody has to sell something I guess.
Posted by: Todd Newbold | Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 04:07 AM
I hope you send this to Erbe.
Mary
Posted by: Mary T | Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 04:07 AM
Todd,
I thought perhaps you had been slightly exuberant and perhaps a little hasty, and in fact I know what it is that you are referring to with respect to the "personal relationship" expression and how it tends to symbolize in the Protestant world a radical individualism, private religion and private interpretation of Scripture.
But that is why I included the Holy Father's quote. Immediately after that statement in the address I cited he goes on to explain just what that means. It is also interesting in light of the recent condom controversy because it reminds us once more of the subtlety of mind and depth of understanding of our Pope.
Having said that, I think there is something deadly serious in the discussion that is sometimes overlooked in the heat of the battle with individualistic Protestant theology. I think Pope Benedict gets it and it goes to the entire salvation/justification controversy.
Like Frances Beckwith, who disturbed some people with his statement, I tend to regard my own position as that of an evangelical Catholic. That is to say, within the context of the dogma and practice of the Catholic faith, the appropriation of salvation is always ultimately up to the individual.
I thought about this in mass this morning as there was a baptism in the mass. A beautiful and always moving sacrament. But as I heard the words addressed to the parents and god-parents I thought about that young girl in 15-18 years, and the world that she will be living in. Will she be able to resist the culture? Will her parents be able to instill moral and spiritual values in her to be able to withstand the onslaught of every moral degradation that will come her way? Will she be confirmed? And if she is will she ever darken the doors of the Church again?
I have no reason to believe that her parents and god-parents will not do their utmost to raise her in the faith, and I pray for them. But in the end, whether that little girl goes to heaven or hell will depend on whether, along the way by degrees or in sudden moments of conversion of heart, she appropriates Christ's work on the cross for herself, and develops a "personal relationship with God."
She has been given now every possible advantage, but our faith teaches us that as she develops to the age of reason, she retains free will. We can give her the fullness of divine revelation; we can give her a complete accounting of all that Christ has given his Church over the last 2000 years; we can teach her the dogma and the reasons for it; we can make her into a great Catholic; we can show her the love of Christ in the way that we pray for her and guide her from the heart of the Church; and all of these things we commit to as the body of Christ; but in the end, her salvation will be won or lost in her own heart.
Posted by: LJ | Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 09:38 AM