As published in The Journal, August 18.
Enormous change is happening in our understanding of the message of Jesus, which presents significant challenges for all Christian churches, but maybe most of all the Catholic Church. For most its history the institutional Church kept strict control of its interpretation of the Jesus story, and of the dogmatic teaching they derived from it. People who deviated from this teaching were banished, or at other times were put to death. It was able to do this because the the study of these subjects was confined to seminaries and third level institutes controlled by the Church. Men (women were almost totally excluded) with qualifications in these areas made their livelihood working in Church controlled institutions. So they had to be careful not to stray from orthodox teaching. If they did, the consequences would be losing their job and their salary, or worse.
But now that has changed. Lay people, including women, are becoming highly qualified in scripture and theology, and are lecturing in institutions that are no longer controlled by the Church. As a result, the tight reign on orthodoxy is no longer possible. New ideas, new approaches, new ways of understanding, are emerging on all sides. Since I was no longer allowed to minister as a priest almost fourteen years ago I have found the freedom to delve into these new writings, and in doing so, my thinking has changed and evolved.
I want to dwell briefly here on two ideas that I think may have a big impact on changing the face of Catholic dogma.
The first one is best illustrated for me by the Czech theologian, Tomas Halik. He puts it like this:
Q All ideas, opinions, writings, even (dare I say it) dogmas are time bound.
What that means is that they are products of their age, with its level of knowledge and understanding. As knowledge and understanding of our life in this world, of humanity in general develops, dogmas and opinions need to be understood and expressed in new ways, ways that speak to the new times people are living in, and the new means of communication.
Another way of making the same point as Halik but stated more bluntly, was written some years earlier by the French priest, Jean Sullivan:
‘I don’t believe in dogmas; I adhere to that which underlies dogmas and is their source. I mean I don’t consider the formulation of dogmas as an absolute; they became more of an obstacle than a means a long time ago’.
So, the big question is, can beliefs and dogmas about God, Jesus, human existence and relationships, the universe, and many other fundamental issues, that were declared in the fourth century as dogmas to be believed by all the faithful, speak to the people of today? I don’t think so. New ways have to be found to present the fundamentals of our faith that make sense in the understanding of today. A big, big task.
The second idea has to do with the Bible and our interpretation of the various books that comprise both the Old and New Testament. Our understanding of how the bible came into being and how to interpret it is very different now to what it was in the early centuries of the Church. We now know that the Bible is only partially historical, and is largely made up of story, myth and statements of the faith of the authors, and we have to find new ways of reaching into the meanings contained in it.
One statement that is being increasingly presented by modern biblical writers is the most radical of all:
Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew.
If we start from there, and I find it harder and harder to contradict it, the implications are enormous. It would mean that Jesus had no intention to found a new church, or indeed a priesthood. The historians of the early Church would suggest to us that both these developments happened in the century or two after the death of Jesus, and had more to do with the writings of Paul than the preaching of Jesus. Indeed Jesus in his lifetime was not known as ‘Christ’, that name was given to him after his death, given to him by Paul.
The Church gradually developed over those first two centuries after Jesus, and was shaped by the early believers, some Jews, but mostly Greeks, Romans and others. It became an exclusive body, outside of which there was no possibility of salvation. This was one of the methods used to spread the Church, and to encourage new members to join. Sadly, in this it deviated in a big way from what Jesus preached. He spoke about the Kingdom of God, and his portrayal of this ‘Kingdom’ was a way of life that was open to all, irrespective of age, gender, colour, whatever. I have always felt that the Church that our generation grew up in, one that laid down conditions, and emphasised the reality of eternal punishment, would have been abhorrent to Jesus’ idea of the Kingdom.
Our understanding of God is also in need of significant development. The Divine is not a male figure, living in a mansion in the skies, with a tendency to pass judgment.
More than anything else, the Divine Presence is in the realm of mystery, beyond our understanding. I find it hard to see how scholars in the early centuries thought they could actually describe this mystery, and make their description into dogmas for all time. Of course they couldn’t, and neither can we in our time. But many people speak and write now about a Divine presence in all creation, even seeing it as the energy that began it all and keeps it in existence. Some even suggest that the Divine is present in all of creation, including each one of us. That notion appeals to me greatly, the notion of a God in whom we live and move and have our being.
