By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
I make no claim to any “inside information” about Pope Francis’ endgame in regard to the Church’s teachings on issues such as abortion, Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, homosexuality, and the role of women in the liturgy. But it is clear that the Pope has said things that are leading to a dialogue about these matters among the folks in the pews. At the very least, we can assume the Pope knew that would happen.
The question for Catholics serious about their faith and the traditional teachings of the Church is how willingly we should engage in discussions that may be open to significant changes in Church doctrine. We don’t want to be disrespectful of fellow Catholics who have seized upon Pope Francis’ words to call for a significant rethinking of long-established beliefs.
But neither do we want to cooperate in creating an atmosphere that promotes a mood of indifferentism indistinguishable from the moral relativism advocated by secular leftists who harbor contempt for the Church and its role in history.
The Church’s teachings are not subject to veto by the prevailing majority opinion. We should not contribute to creating the impression that they are. There is great wisdom in the old cliché: “If you give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a yard.”
We would do well to keep in mind that those who call for “reasonable accommodations” to make the Church more “welcoming” and “compassionate” may have a more radical hidden agenda. It is not hysterical or fear-mongering to harbor that suspicion.
As evidence, I offer the book Strange Gods: A Novel About Faith, Murder, Sin and Redemption, by Msgr. John F. Myslinski and Fr. Peter J. Daly. Myslinski is a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., Daly a pastor at St. John Vianney Church in Prince Frederick, Md., and onetime syndicated columnist for Catholic News Service. The book is currently being advertised prominently in liberal Catholic publications such as Commonweal.
Let’s start by acknowledging that this is a work of fiction. Which means that we cannot assume that the authors share the views of the characters they have created. One might argue that Myslinski and Daly are trying to alarm Catholics about how far the Catholic left is seeking to change the Church, rather than seeking to promote those changes. I played with that idea for a few chapters.
But I quickly changed my mind. I found it in sympathy with the new vision of Catholicism that their characters are working to bring about. I would be willing to bet that anyone who reads the book without preconceived notions will come to the same conclusion.
The story begins with a series of murders of leading cardinals. Nate Condon, a young Catholic attorney from New York City, is drawn into the investigation, which takes him to Rome and into the life of the priests and members of the hierarchy stationed there. He finds a sordid and sinister world at the Vatican.
Readers are introduced to “Jack,” a priest who is depicted as especially wise and insightful. Jack criticizes the Church for “spending more effort reminding people of what is wrong with them than telling them that God loves them. We make the sacraments into rewards for good behavior rather than medicine for the soul,” as if the “Church is the toll booth on the way to heaven.”
The Church, says Jack, “seems to be hung up on things that have nothing to do with Christ — things on which Jesus was absolutely silent. We tell gay people they are ‘intrinsically disordered’ when Jesus said absolutely nothing about them. All they want to do is love each other.”
When a priest who is a friend of Jack objects that “we can’t ignore the truth, the truth of the faith,” Jack responds, “Is it the truth, or is it just our own point of view?”
As the plot unfolds, there is a scene in a convent in Belgium, where one of the sisters, “dressed in an alb, said the words of the consecration, just like any priest. ‘This is my body, given up for you. This is my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant’.” After the ritual, the sister tells a visitor, “It is a Mass like any other, but without collections, babies and men.”
She adds that the sisters had at one time sought a priest to say Mass for the convent, but were told “that if we want to have Mass we should come out to the parish church.” But the “sisters realized that the only day we were all together in our community was Sunday. We wanted a homily and liturgy that was directed to our community. The ancient Church had female deacons for sure, why not priests?”
Nate Condon and his wife deal with the turmoil they witness as the investigation proceeds, especially the cover-up of the pedophile scandals, by pondering whether they “made a mistake putting their faith in the Church all these years.” They assure each other “our Faith was never in this Church anyway. It was always in something bigger and more mysterious than any institution.”
The book ends with a consistory called by the new pope elected to end the corruption depicted in the book. He is determined to create a new Church, where “divorced Catholics should be allowed to receive communion after reflection with their pastors,” one where “the Bishop of Rome will not be a monarch,” but “a colleague among colleagues,” a “more collegial Church and less hierarchal,” where “local churches should make their own decisions, laity and clergy together,” and meet “as equals any Christian communities who wish to dialogue with us.”
This new church will entrust “the whole question of marriage annulments to pastors of souls in local dioceses and parishes, without a legal process. No decision should take more than a few weeks.” It will permit local bishops “to ordain married men to the priesthood,” and will convene a synod of bishops “to discuss the question of ordaining women to the diaconate or even the priesthood.”
At the consistory, there is an assassination attempt on the pope carried out by militant traditionalists. The pope is saved by a trusted aide, who is killed when he shoves the pope out of the line of fire. When the pope is rushed by the Swiss Guard into a conference room, the new pope turns and says matter-of-factly, “The schism has begun.”
Intentionally or not, Msgr. Myslinski and Fr. Daly have demonstrated that among those calling for a way to make women, homosexuals, and divorced and remarried Catholics feel more at home in the Church, are those who are seeking to change the Church into an institution with teachings indistinguishable at the core from the secular humanism found in politically correct university circles and among liberal members of the media.
Back in the late 1960s, Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopalian priest at the time, in his bestselling book Are You Running With Me, Jesus? called upon seminarians to stay within their ministries “to work for change within the existing structures, bringing them closer to the spirit of the humanist revolution.” Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a yard.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress