EXCERPT:
There is nothing wrong with loving popular Catholic devotions and believing that they and enrich the Church and your own spiritual life. But there is everything wrong with expecting that others will feel exactly like you. The first attitude is very Catholic; the second one is not.
The first attitude simply demonstrates the power of Roman Catholic devotions. In fact it demonstrates that the key to the unity of the Church is not uniformity in all things but a diversity of practices which, while rooted in the same faith, vary from culture to culture and generation to generation. In fact it has been the ability of Catholicism to adapt to various times and places that has allowed it to expand so powerfully. That is why Irish Catholicism differs from Italian Catholicism, which is not like Polish Catholicism or French Catholicism or Vietnamese Catholicism or African Catholicism--yet all share the same essential faith.
Such diversity recognizes that no one set of popular devotions fits all Catholics. Such devotions, moreover, seldom spanned all continents or generations; Marian devotions in particular emerged in the medieval era and thrived especially at a time when art and architecture and culture in general focused heavily on Mary as the icon of Christian femininity.
The second attitude--that everyone should find the same benefit from popular devotions--contradicts this historic and cultural diversity by assuming that all Catholics need the same set of devotional practices. The frustration in this attitude is rooted in the desire for a one-size-fits-all spiritual life for all Catholics.
This contradicts our history. How else to explain the multiplication of religious communities in the Catholic Church? Nearly all of them, after all, were born of the conviction that the available forms of the spiritual life were not adequate for everyone's needs.
So, for example, Benedict founded the first monasteries because the solitary life of hermits (the only form of spiritual life prevalent then) did not fit his needs. In other words, the available spiritual practices were not enough for all Catholics.
So too, the Franciscans took to the streets and fields because the Cloistered life of monastic contemplation was not enough. Similarly, the Dominicans brought new preaching and teaching zeal to religious life. The Jesuits added an almost martial missionary fervor and discipline. The Paulist Fathers became the first American-born religious community because their founder, Isaac Hecker, found the established European orders inadequately attuned to American culture and customs.
In short, the Catholic way of spirituality requires a wide variety of approaches to the spiritual life. The longer our tradition lasts, the clearer it becomes that we are never finished developing and enriching Catholic spirituality.
When popular Catholic devotions are good and effective, it is always because they enrich the life of Catholics. But they serve no good if they begin to compete with or replace the core of our faith--the elements that all Catholics must hold in common and practice together.
What do I mean by this "core of faith"?
I mean the things that all Catholics have identified with throughout our history : (1) our belief in the triune God, as definitively enshrined in the Nicene creed ; (2) the reliance on scriptures which began with Paul's letters less than twenty years after the first Easter and culminated four generations later in what we still call the Bible; (3) the regular celebration of the risen Christ presence among us through the visible signs of Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and the rest of the sacramental system we know today; (4) the practice of loving service that enabled the solidarity of early Christian communities to evolve into the world's largest charitable organization.
Our Trinitarian belief, our Biblical faith, our sacramental celebration, and our service to others--these form the core of Catholic life. No generation of Catholics has ever lived --or could ever live --without them.
Compared to this core, everything think else is secondary and peripheral –they are the "bells and whistles" that make Catholicism such a rich, diverse, and the even ornate tradition. But past generations lived their faith without them, and future generations do not require them to be truly Catholic. Those who love them should enjoy them, but no one should feel frustration if others do not respond the same way. And we should never allow them to compete with our core (as, for example, the rosary did during for many Mass-going Catholics in an earlier generation).
No particular Catholic popular devotion, then, can be presented as the key to a power future --or even as the key to reaching out to the next generation. For those who love them, they add to the appeal of Catholic living. But there is no guarantee that they will be enough for millions of other Catholics.
Congratulations on your very original credo, it should be very heartening to the protestants amongst your readership who will find very little with which to cavil. Perhaps a quibble about Confirmation from the fundies, but otherwise it's pitch perfect. The silly integristes who cling to their rosaries and the confessional will of course be put out - to say nothing of their enduring fixation with the naughty bits - but as usual you will overcome their feeble arguments with the cold, clear light of reason.
ReplyDeleteAlas, old bean, two questions which my feeble mind simply won't relinquish:
1.) Where does the Pope fit in all of this? Is he "core" or just a subject of popular devotion (perhaps of the Italian Catholic flavor)? I do realize how much he complicates matters for you.
2.) When are you going to answer my questions about your own personal assent to those non-core trivialities we were discussing last week? One would almost think you were dodging.
Email comment from a long-time reader 4/4/11:"The Core Four"...excellent Bernie...thanks"
ReplyDeleteThe pope is neither doctrine nor devotion, but a simple fact of Catholic life. Longtime readers of CrossCurrents know well my long-standing admiration for John XXIII, Paul VI, john Paul II, and even Benedict XVI- -not least for the way in which each man has transformed the office, so that the papacy is a very different fact now than it was 50 years ago.
ReplyDeleteLongtime readers also know that I consider official teaching on matters sexual to be the weakest link in our chain of tradition, both objectively (owing to a weak, half-pagan fundamental theology, a tendentious application of natural law philosophy, and a willingness to re-write history) and subjectively (given the scandal-shattered credibility of the hierarchy’s moral authority to speak on anything about sex).
Honest readers recognize as well then I have never treated popular Catholicism as “silly.” Some will recall, for example, my glowing account of walking the labyrinth in the Cathedral at Chartres - -an ancient practice long disapproved of (and nearly expunged by) bishops, but now enjoying a growing popular revival, especially in the United States. My own high school has recently installed a full-scale copy of the Chartres labyrinth, traditionally called the “Path to Jerusalem” to denote its function as a metaphorical pilgrimage. Who knows? Perhaps the labyrinth will become the newest #1 on the hit parade of Catholic popular devotions!
Honestly, old chap, are you for real: "weakest link in our chain of tradition"? Talk about labyrinths, you've got to weave past Genesis, dodge the 6th Commandment, swerve around Leviticus, and sidestep St. Paul to come up with a chain that weak! Half-pagan my foot, it's got a hell of a lot better provenance than a lot of what passes for "official teaching" these days, e.g. on capital punishment and other trendiness.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me as though there's a great big "I dissent!" hidden amongst the hedges of that labyrinth, old bean!
And by the bye, your "secular pope" is sure full of peace and love and wisdom toward Israel this week, isn't he? This is "moral authority"? I must need more time in the labyrinth...