These past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about the Catholic faith, my relationship with it, and how it should be taught and articulated in the modern era. For the past few years I took a more or less traditionalist stance. This was less an intellectual commitment so much as a reaction against a spirit of pervasive banality that defined Catholicism as I experienced it growing up.
But today the issues extend far beyond liturgy but also to doctrine. To the content of the Christian faith itself. Should the Church make concessions secular modernity or should the Church insist on the perennial truths of Christian revelation? Can the Church even make any such concessions without falsifying its own claims about itself?
For the traditionalist the answer is a maximalist commitment to everything the Church has historically taught. And indeed given this maximalist commitment it follows that the hierarchy has little power to substantially change much of anything. Disciplinary measures can change and some doctrines may further develop over time, but the Church may never contradict its past teachings.
For the progressive the answer is to take the opposite view. To believe that everything is subject to change because doctrine is a contingent product and of culture and history. Christianity is a dialectic where the will of God for any given time is revealed though the discernment of the zeitgeist. Under this view it is the job of Pope Francis to lead the Church towards a new era of openness and listening thus freeing the Holy Spirit to guide the Church to ever greater heights inclusivity and social justice.
To the traditionalist side: Certain teachings of the modern Magisterium do contradict what has been taught in the past. But the more I think about this the less I see that as a problem. Not everything the Church has taught is infallible truth. Some if not much of what has been taught in the past is contingent on historical and cultural circumstances. I have come to think that the Church has shot itself in the foot with a too expansive notion of what was infallible. Perhaps our modern circumstances are a providential correction to this inflated notion of the Church's infallibly.
To the progressive side: Your vision of Christianity is vacuous. If Christian moral teaching is the mere affirmation of the prevailing opinions of secular modernity then Christianity is meaningless. Christianity cannot be reduced to a mere therapeutic theism wherein everyone's feelings are affirmed. No, Christianity posits a definitive moral reality to which we humans are accountable. If Catholicism is true then the natural law (yet alone the divine law) is real and the fashionable sins of our time are immoral intrinsically. No, there can be no negotiation with Asmodeus. (Yet alone Moloch). The world must conform itself to Christ, not Christ to the world.
While I have grown somewhat disillusioned with the traditionalists I think their error is less severe than the progressivist error, which is little more than de facto atheism masquerading as Christian faith.
But today the issues extend far beyond liturgy but also to doctrine. To the content of the Christian faith itself. Should the Church make concessions secular modernity or should the Church insist on the perennial truths of Christian revelation? Can the Church even make any such concessions without falsifying its own claims about itself?
For the traditionalist the answer is a maximalist commitment to everything the Church has historically taught. And indeed given this maximalist commitment it follows that the hierarchy has little power to substantially change much of anything. Disciplinary measures can change and some doctrines may further develop over time, but the Church may never contradict its past teachings.
For the progressive the answer is to take the opposite view. To believe that everything is subject to change because doctrine is a contingent product and of culture and history. Christianity is a dialectic where the will of God for any given time is revealed though the discernment of the zeitgeist. Under this view it is the job of Pope Francis to lead the Church towards a new era of openness and listening thus freeing the Holy Spirit to guide the Church to ever greater heights inclusivity and social justice.
To the traditionalist side: Certain teachings of the modern Magisterium do contradict what has been taught in the past. But the more I think about this the less I see that as a problem. Not everything the Church has taught is infallible truth. Some if not much of what has been taught in the past is contingent on historical and cultural circumstances. I have come to think that the Church has shot itself in the foot with a too expansive notion of what was infallible. Perhaps our modern circumstances are a providential correction to this inflated notion of the Church's infallibly.
To the progressive side: Your vision of Christianity is vacuous. If Christian moral teaching is the mere affirmation of the prevailing opinions of secular modernity then Christianity is meaningless. Christianity cannot be reduced to a mere therapeutic theism wherein everyone's feelings are affirmed. No, Christianity posits a definitive moral reality to which we humans are accountable. If Catholicism is true then the natural law (yet alone the divine law) is real and the fashionable sins of our time are immoral intrinsically. No, there can be no negotiation with Asmodeus. (Yet alone Moloch). The world must conform itself to Christ, not Christ to the world.
While I have grown somewhat disillusioned with the traditionalists I think their error is less severe than the progressivist error, which is little more than de facto atheism masquerading as Christian faith.
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