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Viewpoint Another time bomb: symbol v. literalism
By MICHAEL MORWOOD
The pedophilia issue may well be the
biggest scandal to hit the church in the United States, Australia and other
countries. Catholics ask how could criminal activity become so widespread in
their church. They feel let down by the ecclesial system in which they had
placed enormous trust. It is now obvious that this issue was a time bomb that
had to explode somewhere.
I want to suggest that Catholic anger, now out in the open like
never before, be harnessed and used, not just on this issue but on others as
well, to shape the church we want to experience in the future. I think there is
another time bomb ticking away, and again we have general episcopal refusal to
face reality. The issue that will explode in our faces very soon is traditional
Catholic belief about God and Jesus. We have to find new images, new ways, even
new or different names to talk about God, to rescue us from the images and
ideas of former times. We have to work at articulating a new and quite
different understanding of how human beings have been and are in relationship
with God. And we have to interpret Jesus of Nazareth in a context quite
different from that in which the early church articulated its understanding of
who Jesus had to be to redeem us.
The Catechism of the Catholic Churchs understanding of the
fall and of Jesus, interpreted strictly within the limits of scriptural
literalism and an antiquated notion of the cosmos, a God-man who does not live
by faith as the rest of us do, with a physical ascent back up into
heaven, belongs to the library of what-was-once-believed. Many defenders of the
faith have long seemed incapable of living with metaphor, mystery, symbol and
myth. They have constantly crossed the line into literal interpretation.
A classic example is one by which I was judged and found wanting
-- as were others teaching in Australia. It was penned by the now archbishop of
Sydney, George Pell. In 1994, he wrote that after the consecration the bread
and wine become really and truly the Body and Blood of Christ.
Really and truly is classical church language, and is confusing
enough. But Pell went on to say how Jesus told his followers that he
would give them his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. Well, yes, but
surely we are not going to take that literally, are we? Surely this is
metaphorical language. But not for Pell.
Even today, he wrote, many people, including
some Christians, find it impossible to accept that the bread and wine are not
just symbols, but truly the Body and Blood of Christ. But this is what
Catholics believe.
All these things became, and still remain, an essential part of
the test for orthodox teaching. However, I doubt that
middle-of-the-road Catholic theologians would treat all of them literally.
Catholic sacramental theologians would not be comfortable with Pells
literalism, which reflects the literalism in official church documents.
The effect is that we continue to muddle through an atmosphere of
extraordinary intellectual dishonesty, an unreal world of make-believe in which
the men with absolute power can silence the voices that disturb their
officially sanctioned, concretized literalism. We must have open discussion and
sharing from our theologians if the body of Christ is to be prepared for the
major shifts in thinking confronting us even now. But what do we find?
We find episcopal leadership, with some few exceptions, unable or
unprepared to deal with the issue of how to speak of God and Jesus in the light
of contemporary scriptural studies or knowledge about the development of life
on earth or any appreciation of the magnitude of our universe. They simply will
not discuss it or promote open discussion.
We find the usual tactic of resorting to absolute power and
authority to squash discussion or to make sure our theologians are not heard if
voices or writings dare to cross the line of traditional doctrinal formulation.
We find fear of contemporary Catholic scholarship. We find failure to face
reality and truth. We find extreme concern about protecting the institution at
all costs. The task of church leadership, as in any time in history, is to
bring the story of Jesus to this age and to the questions and massive advances
in knowledge of this age, not to repeat formulations defined in the context of
questions and understandings that are no longer our questions or
understandings.
The cover-up of pedophilia has its counterpart here. Bishops can
hide behind the demand that assent be given to what the church officially
teaches, and this demand protects them from the challenge we all face --
of articulating how in our times, with what we now know, we are to shape a
spirituality, a faith vision of life, based on the life, teaching, death and
resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
I have never read, heard or seen any Catholic bishop who is
critical of liberal theology offer anything to help Catholics move
away from the literalism into which they have been nurtured. What I have seen,
again and again, is the reference to the Catechism in order to end all
discussion on important issues. Or, as a slight variation, we had Cardinal
Bernard Law saying in 1996 that there could be no dialogue on the common
ground found in sacred scripture and tradition and
mediated
to us through the authoritative and binding teaching of the magisterium.
This is an escapist tactic. It demands that we not raise any questions about
the worldview and context in which scripture was written and doctrine
formulated. So many bishops and other church leaders can continue to ignore
reality and contemporary knowledge that disturbs their theological literalism.
Trust us, they say. We know best. We are acting for your own good.
It is time we let our justifiable anger be heard. How? By being
stirred, as many Catholics are stirred over the pedophilia issue. By being
concerned enough to meet with others to talk about our faith. By being open to
questioning, new insights. By praying in small groups that respect wonder,
metaphor, imagery, risk, listening, creativity and a new story about God, about
Jesus, about ourselves, about all of creation.
Yves Congar believed that the pattern for the exercise of
authority in the early church was this: We listen, I learn, I teach. It changed
gradually to this model: I teach, you listen, you obey. If we can harness the
anger we feel and start doing something about it, shaping the church we want to
experience, bishops may in time start listening again. What a gift to our
church our anger would be then.
Michael Morwood lives in Australia. He is author of
Tomorrows Catholic: Understanding God and Jesus in the New
Millennium (Twenty-Third Publications) and Is Jesus God? Finding Our
Faith (Crossroad).
National Catholic Reporter, April 19,
2002
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