I'm centre-left, and I sometimes feed adrift

I came across this blog post the other day:   http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/surprising-support-and-future-center-left

His conclusions are pretty much aimed at American Catholics.    But I found a few part of the reasoning helpful for naming my own position and challenges.

"Ideological labels for the church are notoriously ill-fitting, but if we're going to use them, I prefer the European taxonomy of "left, center-left, center-right, and right"  ... most self-described moderates actually lean one way or the other, but their defining trait is a preference for consensus.

Yup,that one fits.

"... center-left, meaning Catholics whose instincts run to the liberal side but who still believe in working within the system ..."

That one too.

The center-left, however, sometimes seems adrift.
You can find these folks working in chanceries, ministering in parishes and teaching in Catholic schools, not to mention making up a good chunk of the rank-and-file. They don't like some of what they're seeing from Rome and the U.S. bishops, but they don't want to end up in opposition either. It's not always clear to them what the third option might be.

Check.


I've spent a lot of my church-life defining myself as "not":   not conservative, not radical, not a follower of any particular lay movement or religious order.   My understanding of my vocation is to serve God through service of humankind - every day, acting to make the world a slightly better place rather than a slightly worse one.  Very, very occasionally that means doing something profound.   Most of the time it means small actions, like leaving tempting-but-unkind comments un-said and being polite to people who I don't like.    I'm happy to encourage other people in their religious passions, and believe that the world needs some people who are single-minded about issues.   But mostly I'm not so single minded and don't see that my faith or church "must"  revolve around Lourdes, justice & peace, Padre Pio, the Child of Prague, opposing abortion, or whatever.   But I will work very hard so that all these single-issue-supporters can fit in.

What's particualrly nice about the NCR post is that it affirms that there are people like me.   Somehow it's a world view that doesn't get a lot of coverage, and that can be lonely at times

There was one more interesting quote too:

Today, two-thirds of the Catholics on earth live in the southern hemisphere, a share that will be three-quarters by mid-century.

What's most striking is that many northern hemisphere Catholics don't even realise just how profound the north/south differences are.  Whereas southern hemisphere ones grow up with an understanding that seasons - and thus seasonal liturgical paterns - are not universal.

Faith development - based in the Sunday community, or not?

So my diocese is holding a Mass to launch the Year of Faith - a normal enough thing, I suspect that many places around the world will be doing the same.

Problem is, it's at 3pm on Sunday afternoon.

So there will be some holy-Joes who attend their parish's Sunday Mass and this special one - but is that really healthy faith practise?

There will be some who skip their parish Mass, and go to this one instead. There will be some who go to be seen or to curry favour with the bishop - not actually what Jesus recommended, but common enough human behaviour.

And where will the faithful be? Back home in their parishes, proclaiming the scriptures, handing out the newsletters, making the tea, teaching the children, welcoming visitors, praying for the weary and caring for the needy.

I don't know what the aims of this "year of faith" are (yet), but undermining the place of local communities is not a good way to start.

Comparing a Bruce Springsteen concert to Mass - what can we learn?

An article from Luke Hill in dotCommonweal about Springsteen's North American "Wrecking Ball" concerts:

Much of the audience at a typical Bruce Springsteen concert looks like the folks you might see at the 11:00 Sunday Mass in suburban parishes across the country. (In some cases, they are the same people.) There’s one notable difference: the people at Springsteen’s shows sing.

Now that's interesting quote - because compared to people in Ireland, many many parishes in America do sing.   Or at least they did in 2007, when I was last there.  Ordinary city-centre and city-fringe parishes, the sort that a tourist might find.     For sure, not everyone sang.   But most places, most people did.   So I'm thinking that Luke is pointing to a differece in enthusiam - which might be described as the level of full active participation.   Bruce has these people singing like they mean it - because he knows that singing together is one effective tool for growing solidarity to beat the problems that sparked the tour - and that's something which the Church needs to learn to do.

Luke's conclusion is that Bruce's message is

When facing hard times that exceed the limits of personal experience, remember your history. Remember those who’ve gone before you. Draw strength from their stories and examples. You may need to do what you’ve never done before ...

It strikes me that's a message which Catholics in Ireland need to hear.  

But it's got to come with a fair dose of discernment:  looking to the past needs to mean a lot lot more than continuing  blaming the [Vikings | English |  Vatican | bishops | priests | nuns].   And we need to find the real spritiual strengths, not simply mimic practices that were adopted to deal with problems at a time, and retained because no one ever said "why?".

Understanding Sacraments - Week six, Marriage

A Theology assignment from 1999.

The Second Vatican Council used the word 'covenant' more commonly than 'contract' to describe the partnership that is marriage. This term recalls the covenant which God made with the Jewish people of Old Testament times, and the new covenant made between God the Church by Christ's coming to earth. It refers primarily to a relationship between people rather than a set of rights and responsibilities, and when the relationship is damaged in some way, personal violation, rather than material loss, is the primary negative effect. Covenant is intrinsically about the deepest meanings in human life, not merely about commercial transactions. As such, it is best understood by ordinary people rather than lawyers(1).   Covenant as a type of relationship is intrinsically witnessed by God rather than by people or human organisations, and entering into them requires a degree of mental, emotional and spiritual maturity (note that these three are never absolute - but our understanding of marriage is such that 'adults' are generally judged to have attained them sufficiently to enter into a marriage covenant).

The use of this word reflected a change in Catholic understanding of the nature of marriage between two baptised persons.   Traditional theology viewed marriage as a sacrament, certainly. But it was a sacrament occurring in the context of a contract between man and woman, rather than in the context of the relationship between them. Adopting the idea of marriage as covenant shifted the fundamental basis for the sacrament of marriage from one which focussed on mutual obligations to one based on the loving commitment between to people.

Lawler argues that the radical and solemn commitment that is implied by covenant is a mutual commitment to:

• Create a life of equal and intimate partnership in abiding love
• Create and sustain a climate of personal openness, acceptance, trust and honest that will nurture such an intimate community and the abiding love that is essential to it. This intimate community of love is made possible when certain rules of behaviour are created which will respect , nurture and sustain it
• Explore together the religious depth of human existence and to respond in the light of Christian faith, and
• Abide in love and in covenant and to withdraw from them only if the life of intimacy has ceased to exist and if all available means to restore it have been tried and have failed.

The 'rules' in the second point are nothing more (or less) than the fundamental 'rules' for life as a Christian, namely, love and service. There are numerous scriptural passages which show this. This point also relates to the way in which Ephesians 5:22 (Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord') should be interpreted. The first point to consider in understanding this verse is its wider context. The overall instruction being given in 5:21-33 is that all people should 'be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ'. This was particularly revolutionary to a people living in a culture of extreme hierarchy and dominance. To make the point, the letter-writer provides examples based on ordinary household relationships. Husbands and wives are instructed that their relationships should mirror those of Jesus and his Church, and it is clear (from various parts of scripture and from tradition) that Jesus relationship with the Church is one of leadership through service, not authority. Thus, mutual service, not domination is one of the fundamental rules of Christian marriage, as well as how Christians are to treat one another.

Theologians have defined three different dimensions of human love which are present and necessary in the love between husband and wife.

• Agape is love for the sake of others, 
• Philia is love for a friend, 
• Eros is love for one's own sake. 

All three are necessary components of Christian marriage, if such marriage is to be the whole personal relationship which is necessary fulfil the implications of marriage as a covenant relationship as listed previously. Husband and wife must love each other. They must also be each others best friend, and their life together must satisfy their sexual needs.

Catholic understanding makes a distinction between the sacramentality and validity of marriages. To be sacramental, it is necessary that both partners in a marriage have been baptised by a Christian church using a form which Catholicism considers valid (basically involving water and a trinitarian formula). Valid, on the other hand, requires a number of factors including the consent of the couple and the authority of the minister etc. The distinction between these two aspects of marriage is most important when considering cases where the marriage is 'over' in the eyes of the couple. Sacramental marriages may be dissolved if they were not consummated or annulled if there are sufficient ground to doubt the validity of the marriage. Non-sacramental marriages, on the other hand, may be dissolved under the pauline or petrine privileges.

[The session that this essay is based on ] provided a number of insights into the sacrament of marriage. The teaching that marriage is a sacrament that the couple 'give' to each other with God as witness raises some interesting issues. The other sacraments, are (we believe) perfectly executed when they are carried out according to the Church's rites and by people who intend what they effect etc. The particular liturgical execution may be poor, but the visibile presence and action of Christ is fully present. But with marriage, it is hard to say that the sacrament is fully present immediately after the wedding ceremony, or even after 50 years of life together. The sacrament is not one moment of interaction with God, but a lifetime.

Also, I have an impression that the theology of marriage is that it is somehow less 'sorted out' than the other sacraments. Baptism is a one-off exercise involving forgiveness of sins. But when the inevitable happened and people committed serious sin afterwards, the early Church developed a sacramental means of dealing with the damaged relationships. But it has not been able to do so adequately(2)  for marriage. Even confirmation, which has a number of problems associated with it, at least has the problems well defined. But for marriage I get a sense that many of the issues to do with the personalistic approach are still not fully stated. My own view is that part of the problem is that almost our entire theology of sexuality is intrinsically tied to marriage. We acknowledge that all people are sexual, and that this is an important and sacred part of their identify. But we link this absolutely with procreation, and thus with family and marriage. I suspect that until we can face the issues around sexuality, and in particular the sexuality of people who are not married (for whatever reason), we will not deal with marriage breakdown well.

Hand in hand with the impression that the theology of marriage is less 'sorted out' than the other sacraments is the observation that it is the best 'classified' - there are plenty of rules and categories for describing marriages in legalistic terms. But we do not have good descriptions for the theology of marriage breakdown when it is approached from a 'thoroughly personalistic' point of view.

Footnotes:

(1) I take issue with Lawyer/Palmer who say covenant is best understood by 'lovers, poets and theologians'. Such people are important in giving voice to society's dreams, but tend to have less understanding of a daily grind which is the reality of a marriage covenant. Lovers in particular are in the grip of a set of biochemical processes which by their very nature are anything but permanent.

(2) Annulments and dissolution’s appear to apply to only a small proportion of cases.