What happened at Vatican II? And does it still matter?

Posted on by
Reply

I just finished reading John O’Malley’s What Happened at Vatican II (Harvard University Press, 2008). I read it for at least three reasons. First, John is a teacher, mentor, and friend. Second, I realized I had never read anything substantive about the council, a glaring lacuna in my knowledge. Third, with the recent developments in Roman Catholic liturgy and practice, it struck me as important pastorally to understand some of the background to the Roman Catholic church of the late twentieth century, what conservative Catholics are reacting against, and what disaffected Catholics are struggling with.

O’Malley delivered on all of those points. It’s an engaging read of a difficult subject, and probably very difficult to make interesting for the non-specialist. To talk about machinations behind the scene, debates over schemas and the like is no easy thing. He doesn’t divide the opposing camps into “liberal” and “conservative” but calls them “majority” and “minority.” One gets the sense that the council had a life of its own that made it difficult to control and surprising in its outcomes to both participants and observers.

Most interesting to me are the three underlying themes that O’Malley detects. These, he says, are “the issues under the issues” and are key both to understanding the council and to making sense of Catholicism today. They are: 1) the development of doctrine; 2) the relation of center to periphery; 3) the “style” or model according to which authority is exercised.

In many respects, these three issues are not unique to Catholicsm. It may be that because Anglicanism is shaped very much like the Roman Catholic Church that we experience them acutely, but it seems to me they are pervasive throughout Christianity, and to some degree, throughout the History of Christianity. The first two are, of course, particularly important in debates within and concerning the Anglican Communion. The third I find especially intriguing. O’Malley points out that the documents of Vatican II are self-consciously written in a “pastoral” style, a remarkable break from the doctrinal formulas and anathemas of previous councils. That style involved a change in rhetoric, towards teaching, a change in vocabulary, but also a change in form, perhaps with the emphasis on collegiality.

I read a blog post about “the theology of the text message.” In it, Jason Byassee argues that pastors must be ready to “text” with younger parishioners or risk not communicating at all with them. He talks about offering pastoral care via text message, but there is more to be said. Christians are people of the Book, readers and interpreters of scripture. The question is, what sort of theological and spiritual “style” might emerge from our use of new media?

One possibility: The New Media Project at Union Seminary offers a case study of the House for All Sinners and Saints.

Giles Fraser’s last sermon at St. Paul’s Cathedral

Posted on by
Reply

It was Evensong. The reading was Luke’s version of the Beatitudes: “Blessed be you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. His reflections from the Church Times are here.

His conclusion:

For too long the Church has been obsessed with its own internal work­ings and with silly arguments about sex. Now is the time for a new debate and a new emphasis. For if we are not fully involved with complex dis­cussions about the relationship be­tween financial justice and the way our financial institutions work, then we might as well give up on being a proper Church and admit that we are the spiritual arm of the heritage industry.

Red tape in the way of a day shelter in Madison

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been blogging about the impact of the library and Capitol closures on the homeless in Madison (previous entries here, here, here, and here). We’ve been working on solutions. One of the most promising was to use a vacant car dealership, now owned by the city, as a temporary space through March. Pat Schneider reports on this development, and on the red tape the city has thrown up around it. She’s been doing a great job keeping on this story.

As Schneider observes:

Winter is bearing down, and I’ve got to wonder what sense requiring a landscaping plan makes for a property in Wisconsin that will be used November through March. Not much grows here then. Should planning for a temporary use like this really require restriping the parking lot? A public hearing makes sense, but is there a way to expedite the process to accommodate some of the city’s most vulnerable residents?

Hmmm.

Hmm, indeed!
One piece of good news. At least Savory Sunday has been given a permit to serve lunch in the Capitol on Sunday afternoons.

The Commemoration of All Souls

Posted on by
Reply

Today is the Feast of All Souls, called in the Book of Common Prayer 1979 “The Commemoration of All Faithful Departed. The Feast of All Souls has its origins in the early Middle Ages. Apparently it was first celebrated at the great Abbey of Cluny in the 10th Century. Cranmer eliminated it from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. In the sixteenth century, it was closely tied to the Doctrine of Purgatory which came under sharp attack from Protestant Reformers.

We generally collapse the commemoration of all the faithful departed into our observance of All Saints’ by reciting the names of those who have died in the past year during our Prayers of the People. We will do that, but November 2 fell on Wednesday this year, our Wednesday service became our All Souls service. It was beautiful and moving for those of us in attendance.

All Souls is an opportunity to reflect on and remember those who have gone before us, our friends, loved ones, and others who have helped to shape us into the human beings and followers of Christ that we are. It is also a reminder that the Church, the Body of Christ, consists not only of those we see in this life, but all those who have gone before and entered the nearer presence of God.

When I think of Christians’ remembrance of the dead, I always return to Eamon Duffy’s magisterial The Stripping of the Altars, his examination of late medieval piety and the transformation of that piety in the sixteenth century.

The focal point of the Church’s liturgy of supplication for the dead, All Souls’ Day, was properly called the commemoration of All Souls. It was, of course, the desire for prayer which lay at the root of this preoccupation with remembering. The dead needed to be remembered, for the dead were, like the poor, utterly dependent on the loving goodwill of others. For all the stories of apparitions and Purgatory spirits walking to disturb their survivors, it was orthodox teaching that the living hold no direct converse with the dead. For medieval people, as for us, to die meant to enter a great silence, and the fear of being forgotten in that silence was as real to them as to any of the generations that followed. But for them that silence was not absolute and could be breached. To find ways and means of doing so was one of their central religious preoccupations. For what late medieval English men and women at the point of death seem most to have wanted was that their names should be kept constantly in the memory and thus in the prayers of the living.” Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 328.

Murdering St. Paul’s Cathedral

Posted on by
Reply

George Pitcher offers insight into the inner workings at St. Paul’s Cathedral over the last few weeks, and suggests why the crisis played out as it did. He highlights a division between “the progressive-reformist” wing of the Church of England and “the dressing-up, high-church, ceremonial, and remote Church.

It was Pitcher who, a few weeks ago, offered advice to the Church on how to deal with the media.

The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks

Posted on by
Reply

In an article published in the Financial Times. The ABC broke his silence over the St. Paul’s situation yesterday, to express his dismay about the resignations of Giles Fraser and Graeme Knowles. Today he addresses some of the larger issues, including the Church’s role in the debate over the economy.

we should keep two things in mind. One is what I began with. The Church of England is a place where the unfinished business and unspoken anxieties of society can often find a voice, for good and ill. And if the Church cannot find ways through, that is not an index of the unique incompetence of the Church so much as of the extreme sensitivity of the matters in hand and of the fact that they touch us deeply, in ways that can’t be solved – even by the ablest and wisest – in short order. The second is that we are at risk, in all the excitement of personal crises and dramas, of forgetting the substantive questions that prompted the protest in the first place.

He also draws on the Vatican document on the economy published last week, supporting its general conclusions and suggestions. He highlights three of those suggestions: 1) to decouple ordinary banking transactions from the more speculative ones; 2) recapitalizing banks with public money to jumpstart the global economy; 3) a tax on financial transactions to fund investment and development in the ‘real’ economy.

Williams concludes:

The Church of England and the Church Universal have a proper interest in the ethics of the financial world and in the question of whether our financial practices serve those who need to be served – or have simply become idols that themselves demand uncritical service.The best outcome from the unhappy controversies in the City of London’s Cathedral will be if the sort of issues raised by the Pontifical Council can focus a concerted effort to move the debate on and effect credible and hopeful change in the financial world.

 

We’ll protest Wall Street, but we won’t feed the homeless

Posted on by
Reply

I came across this little nugget. The makeshift, apparently gourmet, kitchen at Zucotti Park closed for several days because the workers thought they were serving too many “professional” homeless people alongside the protestors.

Our experience in Madison over the last months seems to indicate that homeless people found food as well as shelter during the protests here. Numbers at the men’s shelter were quite low for several months, and our monthly meal saw lower numbers than usual, as well. My guess is that Ian’s Pizza and the unions with their free brats were filling lots of empty stomachs, and not trying to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving.

Yes, it could get worse–Developments at St. Paul’s

Posted on by
Reply

The Dean of the Cathedral, the Very Rev. Graeme Knowles has resigned. The full coverage at Thinking Anglicans.

The article from the New York Times.

A background story from The Telegraph on the internal debates at the Cathedral over the last two weeks. Apparently the real power is a retired Major General, who served in Northern Ireland in the 90s. The mind boggles.

Andrew Brown’s commentary from The Guardian’s blog. He has strong words for Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, who is now the Church’s (and Cathedral’s) face in this mess. He’s trying to have it both ways, like bishops so often do, with the usual result of digging himself and the church into a deeper hole.

There’s a lot in the situation that is outside of our experience in the US. First of all, the Church of England is established, a state church, and second, it has a unique relationship with the corporation that runs the City, the square mile that is the heart of London’s financial district and a separate entity from London, with roots going back into the Middle Ages.

Still, it’s hard to see how the Cathedral or the Church of England can emerge from this scandal without greater damage than they’ve already brought on themselves. Given the marginal role of the Church in English society, and other controversies plaguing it, will this be a mortal blow?

The Archbishop of Canterbury has finally spoken out, at least on the departures of Giles Fraser and the Dean. His silence speaks loudly, given his recent courageous stance in Zimbabwe, as well as his extensive comments over the years on the ethics of the economy.

Choose you this day whom you will serve: Lectionary reflections on Proper 27, Year A

Posted on by
Reply

This Sunday, we will be observing All Saints, so our scripture readings will not be a continuation of the texts we’ve been reading. That’s a shame, because all three of them are rich. Both I Thessalonians and the Gospel reading have to do with the Second Coming, while the reading from Joshua 24 is the culmination of that book. All of the readings are available here.

I can’t read Joshua’s speech without thinking of our house in South Carolina.

We purchased our house from fundamentalists. Even though we liked the location, the layout, etc, there was one detail that almost broke the deal. On one of the living room walls was stenciled in large letters: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Now you may think there’s nothing problematic about that verse, that it is a worthy sentiment. But think about it for a moment. Joshua has given the Israelites an ultimatum: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” And to buck them up, to set an example, he continues, “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Do you get it yet? He is making that decision, not just for himself, but for everyone who lives with him—his wife and children, and any slaves. A worthy sentiment? Perhaps, but only if you think the only views that matter are those of the senior adult male.

The first thing we did after closing was paint over that stenciled verse; it took two coats, and still Corrie really wanted me to perform an exorcism on the entire property. After all, underneath that paint, those words remained. Our discomfort with them wass no accident, not just an example of the centuries and the cultural changes that separate us from the book of Joshua. For in their original setting, they were meant to bring discomfort to those who heard them first.

Joshua is largely unfamiliar to us today and the primary reason is that it tells a story that is deeply disturbing to many twenty-first century Christians. It records a version of the conquest of the promised land—with gory details of battles, and perhaps even worse, it records God taking initiative in those battles and demanding the complete destruction of the native population. It resonates uncomfortably with our own nation’s history of settling the continent of North America, defeating and destroying native populations in response to a belief that this land, like Canaan was given us by God. It also raises uncomfortable questions about waging war in the belief that God is on our side.

In fact, there is much more to the book of Joshua than the conquest, and even there the story it tells is much more complex than a quick skimming would suggest. The Israelites did not succeed in displacing the native population, as the later books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings relate, throughout the period of the monarchy, Israel lived among other peoples, and probably over time assimilated many of those people into their nation.

In these last verses of Joshua, we have the culmination of that story of conquest and settlement. This reading is extracted from a larger story, a dramatic covenant ceremony. Much of what was omitted was a recounting of the history of the Israelites—from Abraham and Jacob, through their slavery in Egypt, and the conquest of Canaan. After recounting those mighty acts of Yahweh, Joshua presents the people with an ultimatum: choose to serve Yahweh, or the gods of Mesopotamia, or the gods of the Canaanites. This story hearkens back to the events at Sinai, when Yahweh appeared to the Israelites and gave them the law.

In a way, it’s an odd story, because it implies that the Israelites’ commitment to Yahweh was less than total. In fact, it suggests that it is only now, after entering into and possessing the promised land, that Yahweh demands they give up their allegiance to other gods. But on another level, it is a reaffirmation of that faith, coming about at the end of a lengthy struggle, and centuries of unfulfilled promise. Yahweh had promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they would possess this land; Yahweh had promised Moses and the Israelites as they suffered under Egyptian oppression, that they would be given a land flowing with milk and honey, and now finally, it was theirs.

The authors and editors of Joshua were writing the history of Israel from a vantage point hundreds of years after the fact, and hundreds of miles removed from the promised land. They were writing in Babylon, exiled after the destruction of their homeland, and they were trying to understand those events and to reflect on them theologically. So they developed a theology of promise and fulfillment, of a covenant made at Sinai, reaffirmed here at Shechem, but broken by centuries of unfaithfulness. Yet they hoped for a return to Jerusalem, their faith in Yahweh allowed them to imagine a future back in a restored kingdom.

The Gathering at Assisi

Posted on by
Reply

Francis X. Clooney, SJ on the meeting. Austin Ivereigh wrote a series of posts on the inter-religious gathering at America’s In all Things blog.

Benedict’s speech is here. As Clooney writes, Benedict is insistent that in spite of the use of religious language and motivation to support and rationalize violence, especially terrorism, religion is a force for peace. Benedict said,

The fact that, in the case we are considering here, religion really does motivate violence should be profoundly disturbing to us as religious persons. In a way that is more subtle but no less cruel, we also see religion as the cause of violence when force is used by the defenders of one religion against others.

These are important words given the tendency by adherents of many religions, Christians, Muslims, Jews, among them, to deny their religion’s complicity in violence.

Perhaps most interesting was the inclusion in this third Assisi meeting of nonbelievers, agnostics. Benedict said of their presence:

In addition to the two phenomena of religion and anti-religion, a further basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to whom the gift of faith has not been given, but who are nevertheless on the lookout for truth, searching for God. Such people do not simply assert: “There is no God”. They suffer from his absence and yet are inwardly making their way towards him, inasmuch as they seek truth and goodness. They are “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”. They ask questions of both sides. They take away from militant atheists the false certainty by which these claim to know that there is no God and they invite them to leave polemics aside and to become seekers who do not give up hope in the existence of truth and in the possibility and necessity of living by it. But they also challenge the followers of religions not to consider God as their own property, as if he belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated in using force against others. These people are seeking the truth, they are seeking the true God, whose image is frequently concealed in the religions because of the ways in which they are often practised. Their inability to find God is partly the responsibility of believers with a limited or even falsified image of God. So all their struggling and questioning is in part an appeal to believers to purify their faith, so that God, the true God, becomes accessible.

Clooney raises several questions about the meeting. First, he is critical that the group did not pray together in any way. As he writes:

as spiritual seekers will also insist, the path cannot be traveled if praying-together be entirely ruled out (as seems to have been the case in Assisi 2011). Our crises are spiritual as well as intellectual, and even on intellectual grounds, deeper truths can sometimes be glimpsed only through spiritual windows, when they are open. How we can best pray together across religious borders – differently with different believers, one might guess – is open to study and discernment, but the answer is not “pray by yourself.” It is not enough to take the train together (from Rome to Assisi) or to give or listen to speeches in the same place. Pray together we must.