Florovsky-Newman Week 2019 was a most stimulating experience.
This event meets a significant need for more serious theological exploration,
and I learned a great deal from Fr. Geoff Boyle, Dr. Alexis Torrance, and
Stephanie Mann. But the Catholic plenary presenter seemed preoccupied with a Freudian
format for the restructuring of the Church rather than offering an
understanding of authority in faith and morals based on the Church’s own self-understanding.
The following personal reflection does not pretend to be a thorough exposition
of Catholic ecclesiology. I am simply sharing some of the thoughts that
occurred to me as I listened.
An exploration of authority in the Church begins with her
ontology, as her authority flows from what she is. This also provides the proper
foundation for a critique of the exercise (sometimes well, sometimes poorly) of
her authority. Contrary to popular opinion, the Church’s authority is not
coterminous with the hierarchy. Even the Council of Trent distinguished between
the pope who sits on the chair of Peter and the throne of the risen and
ascended Lord. Peter does not speak independently but as one who responds to
Christ and is in service to Him.
As explained by Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Church begins
with the kenosis of Christ and the outpouring of blood and water on the Cross. The
Church is both Bride of Christ and Body of Christ, at whose center is the
personal encounter and nuptial union between God and man. As the Body of
Christ, the Church, while distinct, is never separable from her Head; as Bride,
she is never separable from her Groom.
Mary is the personal center of the Church. She is not the
Word but the adequate response to Him. The Incarnation – which took place with
Mary’s “Yes” – is the primordial ground of the Church and began in the womb,
prior to Jesus’ active ministry and prior to the calling of any apostles. The
Church’s primary mission is to give birth to Christians, other Christs. Hence,
we refer to the Church as Mother, not Father.
The Church does have a visible historical and sociological
existence in the world, but this aspect of the Church is never independent of her
center in Christ. Her work is to bring others into that personal union with
Him, not to rule for her own purposes. She has no other mission, as this nuptial
encounter constitutes the living center of the Church.
Unfortunately, according to von Balthasar, the Church
began to lose this fundamental understanding of herself in the late medieval or
early modern period. While von Balthasar focuses on the post Reformation Church
as fostering an emphasis on the external, outward functions of office in the
Church – what he calls form over content – I would place the divergence in the
fourteenth century with the advent of Nominalism. (N.B. Alistair McGrath offers
in his book Reformation Thought
an
interesting discussion of how the deficient theology of the late Middle Ages,
based on Nominalism, influenced Luther’s theological problems with
scholasticism.)
Nominalism notwithstanding, the offices and work of the
Church are always developed and evaluated in light of her true, inner being as
Bride of Christ and Body of Christ and in light of her true mission – the
formation of Christians. And, while the Church has been faithful to her mission
in many areas, there is plenty of ground here to critique some of the more
egregious abuses of power we have seen lately. Certainly, much work needs to be
done to bring the Church back to her true center in these areas. But Freud’s
animus against the “father” does not provide the way back. The Church’s own
theology provides ample material for reflection.
Finally, at this point it is obvious that Pastor Aeternus
and #22 of Lumen Gentium
are not the full and
complete understanding of authority in the Catholic Church. Following von
Balthasar’s method, we must take in the whole before the parts. The First
Vatican Council was dispersed by the Italian wars of unification and did not
finish its work. The first Council’s focus on the papacy was in response to the
problems caused by Gallicanism, Febronianism, Josephinism (usurpations of the
Church by the secular kings), and by the French Revolution and its aftermath. A
strong papacy outside the control of the secular powers was seen as a way to
protect the independent ministry of the Church. The persecution of the Church in
Communist China today emphasizes the wisdom of this insight.
Lumen Gentium
,
on the other hand, presents the Church from many angles, beginning with the
mystery of the Church, in which Christ remains the one mediator. The Church is
not only the hierarchy, where, yes indeed, the Council reiterates the
definition of papal authority, but also includes the developing role of the
Laity (not a pejorative term), the Church as Pilgrim, the spiritual contribution
of her Religious, and finally considers Mary’s role in the Church. While I can’t
say the Council went as far or as deeply into Mary’s fiat
as the primordial ground for the Church that von Balthasar proposed,
there are grounds in the Council for development in that direction.
The Council certainly provided a solid jumping off point
for a development of our understanding of authority in the Church, a point from
which St. John Paul II wrote his encyclicals on the Laity (1988), the
Priesthood (1994), and the Bishops (2001). Perhaps most importantly, he
extended the discussion in Ut Unam Sint
as part of his ongoing search for Christian unity, an openness that continued
under Pope Benedict XVI. These invitations for discussion remain open
today.
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Jeri Holladay
writes from Wichita, Kansas where she has been Associate Professor of
Theology, Chairman of the Theology Department, founding Director of the Bishop
Eugene Gerber Institute of Catholic Studies at Newman University, and Director
of Adult Education at the Spiritual Life Center of the Diocese of Wichita. She
has also served on Eighth Day Institute’s Board of Directors.
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