A Protestant Response to
the Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church
A Sermon Preached by Craig Anderson
Brookside Community Church UCC
II Corinthians 4:1-12 January 12, 2003
In the first half of the 20th century, several poets became Christians, most notably perhaps T.S. Eliot. An anglo-catholic if there ever was one, Eliot’s tastes were high church, and as Adam Gopnik wrote in the New Yorker last fall, Eliot looked to the church “for order, authority, and tradition.” Eliot’s conversion was followed about a decade later by that of another poet, W.H. Auden, whose Christianity, Gopnik says, “was nearly the reverse of Eliot’s.” Instead of order, authority and tradition, Auden saw in Christianity, “a radical leveling principle that eliminated hierarchies and distinctions between people -- smart and stupid, even good and bad -- and left them all sinners in a single boat.” (New Yorker, 9/23/02).
What’s your choice? Your preference? Order, authority and tradition; or a radical leveling? Or dare I say, what’s your preference, Roman and Anglo-Catholic, or Protestant? There is a difference. These camps are both Christian, but they are not the same, and I dare say that the recent crisis in the Roman Catholic Church has thrown these contrasts into sharper relief.
It is not my aim this morning to argue that Protestantism is superior to Roman Catholicism. So don’t like this sermon for the wrong reasons. The Catholic church has survived for many centuries, and it can be expected to survive for many more and even thrive if it solves and transcends its current problems and woes. But I will go so far as to say that I think the Catholic Church might learn something from the Protestant one, which is to say, that the reformation happened for many reasons, some of them very good ones still.
But let’s start with the obvious: order, authority and tradition have their place, and when we Protestants engaged in our little rebellion we sacrificed some of the admirable qualities of the church which gave us birth. Foremost among these perhaps is the relative unity of the Roman church. Catholics are rightly proud of a uniformity of tradition and practice which allows a believer to worship in a Catholic church any where in the world and feel at home with the liturgy. This unity also means that when Bishops, Archbishops and Popes speak, that world leaders listen. While many Americans claim that Ronald Reagan brought down communism by out-spending the Soviet military, many eastern-Europeans will argue that Pope John Paul’s support of the Solidarity movement in Poland was the first domino. Make no mistake, no single Protestant leader comes even close to the influence of the Catholic hierarchy, and very often that influence has been used toward the wonderful ends of justice, mercy and peace.
By way of contrast we are part of a denomination which is often called the Un-tied Church of Christ. With every local church proudly strutting its autonomy, herding cats is simple in comparison to uniting our churches into unified action. Not only that, but we represent only a miniscule faction within the myriad expressions of faith which have come out of the Reformation down to today. Anarchy is much closer to the protestant way than unity. Not only do worship styles differ enormously from one church and denomination to the next, but you would also be hard-pressed to find a consensus on matters of faith, belief and practice within this one little room, let alone the world-wide, multi-valent Protestant movement. From snake-handlers in Tennessee, to speakers of tongues in Brazil, to Gospel choirs in Harlem, to up-tight, rhythmically-challenged mostly white folks in Brookside, you’ve got yourself a big mess since Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli. So as I say, don’t like this sermon for the wrong reasons! We’ve got problems in our tradition too, including sexual and ethical ones. But this being said, I’m still glad that the Reformation happened, and despite our near-chaos, I do believe that order, authority, and tradition are not ultimate, and that hierarchies and distinctions must be radically leveled. Let’s explore the implications of this in greater detail.
There are many dimensions to the Catholic crisis and new analyses almost every day. I will limit my survey to three sources: an op-ed piece in the January 1st New York Times written by a former priest, Paul Dinter; an open letter from Ken Lasch of St. Joseph’s Church addressed to the American Bishops when they met in Dallas last June; and an article from the New York Review of Books written by Garry Wills, a public intellectual, and practicing Roman Catholic. We Protestants can be proud to count the likes of these Catholics in the Christian fold.
From Paul Dinter’s perspective, the Catholic crisis stems from a hierarchy which wants only two things from the faithful below, deference and silence. When order and authority run wild and unchecked, what results is a system in which lay people and local priests alike, in Dinter’s words, “have next to nothing to say about the shape of Catholic leadership or its response to the crisis.” Offers of dialogue are sometimes actually summons to “so-called Roman dialogue, which means: ‘I’ll do the talking, you listen.’” (Sort of like these sermons, but don’t pay any attention to that!) The chain of authority is maintained by information being passed only through appropriate channels, with underlings seldom granted the opportunity to speak directly to those on top. Consider the irony in Boston, that the interim Bishop replacing Cardinal Law has still not granted an audience to the Voice of the Faithful. That he doesn’t want to hear these voices, speaks volumes.
Ken Lasch set the tone for his respectful dissent by following his opening “Dear Fellow Servants,” with the statement, “I hope you will not be offended by this egalitarian salutation.” Later in his extraordinary letter, Fr. Lasch pleads with the Bishops, “Please do not treat us like children,” an amazing request from a distinguished, senior, albeit local, non-celebrity, leader. He too asks that the concerns of the people be heard: “We do not always have the impression you are listening to us. You seem to be more intent on teaching us how we should think than in engaging us in dialogue. We know that the church is not a pure democracy but you should know by now that it is not a monarchy either. We are a hierarchical communion -- all of us are leaders to one another.”
Gary Wills finally, cites Father Donald Cozzens, who suggests that the deference afforded to Catholic clergy both high and low, may have led to a situation where too many priests have “betrayed their baptismal calling as a fellow Christian with all Christians in the name of a special, supposedly higher, calling.” Cozzens argues that when the forces of “clericalism, elitism, careerism, envy, and competition” grip priests, it is “easy for them to lose touch with their baptismal identity. The need to buffer an exalted priestly identity may well abort the potential for honest relationships with men and women. A line is crossed and a priest may treasure the bitter-sweet belief that he is not like other men.”
Gary Wills follows Cozzens with the pithy observation, that “A man without a wife to puncture his pomposity, without children to challenge his authority, in relations carefully structured to make him continuously eminent, easily becomes convinced of his superior wisdom.” (If I may, let me humbly note at this juncture, that I have both a wife and children, and a quite talented, un-shy congregation... which, if you must know, is why I limit my pompous displays of authority and wisdom to short, but yet of course, brilliant, bursts!)
While I have cited these several sources with evident approval, do note that each of them is a faithful, and even eminent Roman Catholic. They don’t need me to tell them what the crisis in their church is all about. They know it only too well. And neither do any of them need to hear a sermon about tenets of reformation. Each of these witnesses is a diligent reformer. And yet what do such reformers teach us, starting with these four and looking back 500 years? I believe that the wisdom of reform begins with Auden’s type of Christianity, in which there is a radical leveling of all hierarchies and distinctions.
One of the truths which the Reformation emphasized was that only God is sovereign. All of the costumes and regalia of high church liturgy, all of the pomp and pretensions of the supposed princes of the church, are brought low and put in proper perspective by the affirmation of God’s sovereignty. Protestants were not the first to recognize this, and neither was the apostle Paul, but he stated this truth brilliantly when he said that we human beings are but frail, clay jars. The treasures of wisdom and faith, of justice and mercy, are of far greater and enduring value than we vessels who are meant to embody them. Resplendent robes? Dust. Lovely architecture? Wood and stone. Well wrought words? Clay.
For the reformers, some vessels were not clay, while others were sterling silver. They were all clay. But the vessels did take different shapes and served different functions. So ordination in the Protestant tradition has always been given a functional definition. Ordained servants are not different in kind from un-ordained ministers, we all serve, but there are different forms and functions of service.
I have not worn my robe today, to signal another reformation practice. Robes were worn in 16th century Geneva, because it was a university town and the streets were filled with teachers and students all dressed the same, in simple academic gowns. Since there were to be no distinctions, no regalia or pomp, ministers were to wear what everyone else wore, a gown. Today I wear what you wear. Maybe if I weren’t so pompous, I’d remember to do this more often.
Along side this reminder that we humans should not forget who we are, and obscure who God is, still this God practices a most peculiar form of sovereignty. As revealed in the form of the Christ, this God identifies with humanity in all humility and kindliness. When Jesus was baptized, his dip in the Jordan River became for him a sign of God’s favor. When we practice that rite in our own time, this same affirmation of love is pronounced over us.
I love the description our Catholic friends give for our “baptismal identity,” that the simple symbol of splashing water on our bodies is all that distinguishes us. I note that virtually every religion has some rite involving cleansing waters, and that even if our parents never presented us for baptism, they certainly bathed us clean over and over again. All Christians certainly, and all human beings by extension, are equal: none, when stripped bare for a bath is more exalted than another, each is cherished and loved by God.
If there are no hierarchies, no differences in kind, no class of people more holy than others, since we all appear before God scrubbed by our parents to one degree and another, then we all appear before God as equals and on our own. There are no intermediaries in this relationship. No brokers putting your people together with God’s people. The negotiations are done face to face, heart to heart, spirit to spirit. Guess what this does to authority? It questions the assertion that there is no salvation outside of Rome. Salvation can come in a one on one encounter: your soul in communion with Holy Spirit. Guess what this does to hierarchy? Radically flattens it, like a pancake, and we are left to share authority and power. Ken Lasch speaks carefully of a “hierarchical communion,” but then he slips in the real zinger, “all of us are leaders to one another.”
The Catholic church is not a monarchy, nor a democracy, and if power were shared, a degree of chaos would ensue. But to preserve law and order will Rome continue to force its people to pay the prices of deference and silence? That sounds much too expensive to me. The reformation gave birth to a myriad of sects and churches and splinter groups, but it was also one of the grandparents of democracy. It’s a lousy system, but so far nobody has come up with anything better.
What has come out of the reformation ultimately, has been called the Protestant Principle, which is simply the idea that reform is always an ongoing necessity in every place and time, in every human endeavor to give expression to that which is Holy. And it seems such reform is always driven and inspired by a holy presence we name Spirit. This Spirit calls insistently through history for renewal, reform and rebirth of God’s world and God’s people, all of them, not just the one’s sitting in our pews, but Holy people gathered in Mosques, and Ashrams and temples of every description. Surging through the pages of many scriptures, breaking out of liturgical forms in many cultures, animating the actions of prophets and reformers in every religion is a Spirit which transcends all human differences and distinctions: a universal Spirit which breaks every human form, and transcends every human expression, and outranks every human hierarchy.
Who or what that Spirit is, is a mystery wrapped within a mystery: tied up in an enigma, but it is real, and it punctures all pomposity; challenges all authority; and levels every distinction: leaving us alone before the holy and hidden heart of existence, humble and contrite, eager to mend our ways, in love with existence and one another. It is a Spirit who calls us, calls us to be gentle with one another, and kind, and to burn with passion for justice and peace, justice and peace within all our houses, even the house of the Roman church.
Would you like to raise a question or make a comment (even a provocative one)? If so, e-mail Craig Anderson at craig@brooksidechurch.org