Chapter Talk
CHRIST THE CENTRE
The title of this talk answers in advance the principal question under consideration: where is the centre in a Church often perceived as riven by a polarization between so-called progressives and traditionalists? A quotation from the former superior of St. Mary’s, Petersham, Fr. Cyril Karam, who died tragically in a car accident, takes us further into our subject:
‘We humans seem to relish the extremes of the pendulum swing, and seem most often incapable of holding a proper balance. Yet that is the most exciting adventure. Both dogmatism and personalism have attractive traits and embody some truth, but extremes become stale–and miss the mark; while the “centre” is always rich with the richness of the “mystery” inasmuch as it holds together two contrary visions which are in constant “dialogue”. Revelation culminates and centres in Christ who is both Person and Word, so that our personal relationship with Him, with all its mysteriousness and unpredictability, is at the same time commitment to that which is coherent, which underlies intelligibility in the world and history and our own capacity for knowledge and understanding. The intelligible content of dogma is indispensable to keep commitment to Christ from being mere sentimentality, and the personal relationship salvages dogma from being an exercise in logic or metaphysics.’
Already in this quotation there is an adumbration of the solution: Christ is the centre.
Before returning to this crucial point, it would be useful to look briefly at some of the standpoints of those in the Church who, while being accused of extremism by their opponents, lay claim to the centre ground. There are excesses of opinion on both wings of the Church, repugnant to anyone trying to operate from the centre. Yet the partisans of the two sides also hold some legitimate attitudes which, by association with the extremes, have become tarred with the same brush, occasioning unfair reactions in observers.
Over the years, there have been an abundance of horror stories connected with the liberal wing of the Church. There is, for example, the vignette of Dorothy Day–hardly an arch-conservative–on her hands and knees collecting fragments of the consecrated host which had been scattered carelessly during a 1960s Mass. Nearer our times, a bizarre organization formed itself only recently with the set purpose of protecting the public against what it termed the “liturgical abuse” of the past, i.e. Latin inter alia. One would be blind to deny that, in the Western world today, there is widespread opposition to the teachings of the Pope and the magisterium which is regarded as normal and fashionable; meanwhile the Pope, as the writer Ralph McInerny says, “stands alone, patiently and forcefully addressing the evils of our day.” Standing in the Centre.
Such then are the excesses which must not be allowed to cast a shadow over the good of the Second Vatican Council: the documents themselves, the renewal of interest among both clergy and laity in Scripture and lectio divina, the rich and varied Mass readings, the impetus given to ecumenism, the rise of new communities within the Church and so on.
When we turn to the traditionalist wing of the Church we find a very different picture. It is instructive to note, however, that its own excesses lead to a very similar result: disaffection from the Pope and the magisterium, going as far as schism. Extremists belonging to this wing have even called the Council itself a doctrinal aberration which contradicts previous councils and should there fore be considered invalid. There are reports of the Holy Father’s name being omitted from the canon of the Mass. I once heard that a visitor to our Abbey Church went out of our Sunday Mass (celebrated according to the new rite in Latin) because of the measure of English we use on that day on account of the faithful. Here too, then, are distressing extremes; yet again they should not prevent us from acknowledging the legitimate aspirations of some traditionalists who desire to see the restoration of the universality and sacredness of the liturgy.
We are right, in my view, to react to various excesses and prejudices of whatever hue, and I would make a further point, more subtle but important. We are also right to react to a general attitude in people which is compounded of, conditioned by, a whole programmed way of looking at ecclesial matters. One can become uncomfortable just by becoming aware of a particular mindset no matter what the shade. People can have an immediate, emotional and unthinking response even to the very mention of some topics: on the one side, for example, inter-religious dialogue, or some forms of women’s rights; on the other, to the use of Latin in the liturgy, the religious habit or enclosure for nuns. We are in danger of becoming programmed. But, as long as anything is allowed and blessed by the Church, we should give it a welcome. There should be sympathy towards those of the Catholic faithful who were suddenly bereft of a rite which satisfied their spiritual needs and was replaced by something often banal and in some cases displaying erroneous features. Neither should we look askance at those who prefer a dignified liturgy celebrated in English, according to the Church’s norms, and with contemporary songs. There is a certain danger of liturgical snobbery, as distinct from liturgical exactness, which we do well to avoid.
In Hans Urs von Balthasar‘s A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen, he says that the essential newness in Christianity has to be lived out and experienced again and again. It has to be manifested in the saints of every age. If there is an absence of saints, the faith will seem outdated to some. He then points to Mother Theresa of Calcutta: “Nothing in this old woman is progressive, nothing traditionalist. She embodies effortlessly the centre, the whole. . . Wherever in the tradition of the Church something truly spiritual appears there is no laboriously repeated doctrine but a breathtaking adventure.”
Both wings of the church would, I believe, claim that Mother Theresa belongs essentially to them. The truth is that a person of authentic holiness transcends all partisanship because he or she is in Christ, immersed in the fullness of Christ and showing forth that fullness to the world. For his part, Cardinal Ratzinger proposes the example of St. Charles Borromeo who pointed the way to renewal of the Church by teaching the faithful how “to live permanent values in a new way”: “Charles could convince others because he himself was a man of convictions. He was able to exist with his certitudes amid the contradictions of his time because he himself lived them. And he could live them because he was a Christian in the deepest sense of the word; in other words he was totally centred on Christ. What truly counts is to re-establish this all-embracing relationship to Christ. No one can be convinced of this all-embracing relationship to Christ through argumentation alone. One can live it, however, and thereby make it credible to others and invite others to share it.”
It remains to consider in the light of this conclusion the question of adherence to issues. Holiness does not consist wholly in a natural goodness; Christ is Word as well as Person. Knowing, believing, acting on the Word, commitment to dogmatic truth is integral to Christian holiness. The role of dogmatic truth has been compared to that of a skeleton in the body. Holy persons, the saints, always possess this backbone, even though it is the radiance of their goodness that presents itself first to our admiration. One might say equally that it is the radiance of the truth living in them. While it is true, then, that our attitudes to certain issues in the Church may betray something of our own temperament and be all-too-human in their expression, these are not to be confused with the issues themselves, when they base themselves on dogmatic truth. When they are so founded, they form a necessary component of sanctity and hence of centrality.
It is of vital importance that twentieth century Catholics rid their attitudes of intolerance, on the one hand, and a lack of intellectual rigour, on the other. We shall do this by becoming more closely engrafted into Christ, the Centre, Christ the Truth, “rich with the richness of the mystery.”
