One of our readers rang me yesterday evening, to read over an article published in the dissenting journal, Open House, by Professor John Haldane, widely acclaimed as an “orthodox” if not quite “traditional” Catholic who, because of his academic credentials, is hailed as something of a guru within the local Scottish Church. Personally, I’ve found him pleasant and co-operative when I’ve had occasion to email him; for example, he readily provided a copy of the aforementioned article published in the current, 200th edition of Open House, for the purposes of this blog discussion. I asked him for a copy because so much of the article came as a surprise (not least the fact that he is clearly a supporter of Open House) but nothing quite so much of a surprise as his claim that Vatican II was a dogmatic Council.
This is not the case. That Vatican II chose to remain on a purely pastoral level, is a well documented fact. Documented, by none other that the present Pope when – as Cardinal Ratzinger – he addressed the Bishops of Chile: “The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.”
Anyway, read Professor Haldane’s article below and share your thoughts. Are you surprised? If you’re one of the priests who reads this blog, you’ll be surprised because I’ve lost count of the number of priests who have tried to convince me that John Haldane is “one of the good guys.” He’s a nice man, all right – that’s for sure. But a sound, orthodox Catholic? Not if he means what he says in this article. See if you agree…
OPEN HOUSE
March 2010, Issue No, 200
Coming of age in an age unbecoming.
John Haldane
In the twenty years since Open House was founded much has changed in the social, cultural, political and religious life of the UK in general and of Scotland in particular. In January and February 1991 Britain was engaged in a brief war in the Persian Gulf, fighting along with some thirty other countries in what was generally regarded as the just cause of liberating Kuwait from Iraqi invasion forces. Around the same time the IRA launched a mortar into the garden of Downing Street. Basil Hume had been Archbishop of Westminster and Cardinal for fifteen years, and although Tom Winning had served as Archbishop of Glasgow a couple of years longer, it would be 1994 before he would enter the Cardinalate.
Also in 1991 the Scottish Natural Heritage Act replaced the Nature Conservancy Council and the Countryside Commission with a new body whose aims are to secure the conservation and enhancement, and to foster understanding and facilitate the enjoyment of, the natural heritage of Scotland. Meanwhile in Rome the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suffered a brain hemorrhage that temporarily incapacitated him, and in Hollywood Robbie Coltrane starred in The Pope Must Die. Elsewhere, hitherto isolated criminal cases of clerical sexual abuse were starting to be connected and the question of whether there was a general problem was beginning to be asked.
Twenty years on we are in the midst of a public enquiry into the second Gulf War (2003-), convened in response to the general belief that it was immoral and probably illegal. The Provisional IRA has ended its armed campaign and its political representatives are in Government with the DUP, the ‘uncompromising’ section of Ulster Unionism. Hume’s successor’s successor, Archbishop Nichols, remains to be raised to the Cardinalature, while in Scotland the Archbishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews, Keith Cardinal O’Brien is the senior serving RC churchman in the UK.
The transition from nature conservation to environmental desperation proceeded apace until quite recently when the matter has been called into serious question. The former Prefect of the CDF is now Pope, and Robbie Coltrane is best known as ‘Hagrid’ from the film adaptations of the Harry Potter tales. The clerical abuse scandal has become the single best-known ‘fact’ about the Catholic Church. And everyone’s waiting for the Pope to arrive in September, which, if he does so, will make him only the second serving Pontiff to come to Britain.
Against this background how stands Catholicism today? Like other Christian denominations the Catholic Church in Scotland has declined in numbers of clergy and in active participants. It used to be said that in calculating the sizes of Christian denominations you took the total number of those baptized and divided it in three: a third lapsed, a third occasional, and a third practicing. I would say that so far as concerns the last, a quarter or a fifth might now be the more accurate measure. The causes of decline include quite general factors that have taken similar toll of other forms of association, such as trade unions and social clubs: multi-channel TV, computer games, internet and cheap supermarket alcohol. But there are also specific influences including loss of contact with clergy, and loss of trust in them, plus lifestyles among the laity that are clearly at odds with Catholic moral teaching and which lead to avoidance of the Church.
Along with the decline in numbers has gone a rise in materialism marked at one level by immersion in the world of sensuous appetite, and at another by adoption of the mores of secular society. The former is a regression to the condition of the working classes in the nineteenth century, which was marred by drunkenness, sexual indulgence and violence. The latter, however, is a relatively new phenomenon, at least so far as concerns Scottish Roman Catholics. It is distasteful, and also destructive and it comes in two forms imported from south of the border: a ‘right-wing version’ and a ‘left-wing’ version, and although each appears to loathe the other, they are united by pretension and craving for establishment.
The right-wing version is infatuated with old Catholic names and arch Catholic attitudes. Its heroes include R.H. Benson, Evelyn Waugh and Mgr Gilbey and its preferred liturgy is at least Latin if not also Tridentine. It looks back to the Second Spring initiated by Newman’s sermon before Cardinal Wiseman, and forward to the time when the heir to the throne will be a Catholic.
The left wing version is infatuated with radical clergy and social justice. Its heroes include Bruce Kent, Hugo Young and Cherie Blair and its preferred liturgy is something that might serve in an inter-denominational prayer service. It looks back to the Second Vatican Council, and forward to the time when the occupant of the throne, if there is one, will be a defender of faiths.
Why do I describe these as distasteful, destructive, pretentious and desirous? The first and last of these characteristics go together, for the two outlooks I have described, briefly, and in over-generalised terms, aspire to acceptance among those whom they secretly regard as their betters. Put another way, they exhibit the symptoms of people in the grip of an inferiority complex, and their sense of worth is closely tied to being approved of by those of whom they approve. Pretension is closely associated with this, since the desire to be close to or among those of whom one is in awe often produces imitation of their condition. In the case of the ‘right’ this generally takes the form of feigned modes and manners, in the case of the ‘left’ of feigned intellectualism.
So far as destructiveness is concerned the effects tend to include a corruption of conscience, excusing among one’s own what one would condemn in one’s opponents, an inordinate dependence upon real or conceived approbation, and a lack of charity with regard to the motives and behaviour of anyone with whom one disagrees. There is also a form of displacement of the attention due to God towards moral causes: in the case of the right towards battling against abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality; in the case of the left towards campaigning against world poverty, domestic violence and sex trafficking.
The reason I have chosen on the occasion of Open House’s 200th edition to raise and discuss the issue of conflict between right and left, conservative and progressive is because at a time when the rest of society is forgetting religion it is mad for believers to set about one another, generally out of motives that are not themselves essentially religious. We need to do better as individuals and we need to do better as representatives of Christianity. How terrible that the secular world’s experience of committed Christians should be of either ‘conservative young fogeys’ or ‘liberal old hippies’. Were we members of a private social club this might not matter but we are the medium through which God operates in the world and anything that puts our lifestyle preferences before His commands is liable to be sinful and self-destructive.
So how to proceed? First, we need to draw a number of distinctions: political, cultural and theological. Whether one is conservative or liberal, traditional or progressive is extraneous to the theological contrast between the orthodox and the heterodox. The Western Latin Catholic Church, like the Eastern Greek Orthodox Church proclaims and requires orthodoxy. Cultural and political positions, to the extent that they do not clash with this, are not matters for the Faith.
Second, we need to face certain facts. The Roman Catholic Church is never going to ordain women to the priesthood. It believes that since this was not part of the apostolic ordination initiated by Jesus and continued by the successors of the apostles it does not have the authority to innovate in this fundamental respect. Nor is it going to allow clergy to marry (as against allowing the married to be ordained) for apostolic tradition tells against this, as again the Orthodox and ‘Uniates’ attest. Second, the Church is never going to accept the moral acceptability of sex outside marriage, or accept homosexual practice, or allow the dissolution of valid marriage. For these have been the subjects of decisive conciliar judgments from earliest times, from the Council of Jerusalem onwards. Nor, however, is the Church going to repudiate the norvo ordo, or declare Mary co-mediatrix, or declare the messages of Lourdes or Fatima de fide, or reject the Second Vatican Council as merely pastoral. There are no levels of authentic mass; there is no salvific mediation save through Jesus; revelation ended with the death of the last apostle; and the Second Vatican Council was ecumenical, valid, licit and dogmatic.
In his response to Cardinal O’Brien’s address on behalf of the Scottish Catholic Bishops during their 2010 ad limina visit, the Pope recalled the distinction between the lay ministry and the lay apostolate. The former notion has its origins in the US Catholic Bishops’ acknowledgement of the growing contribution of pastoral coworkers, but as the Pope indicated it is liable to confuse roles and distract from the special calling of the laity. Addressing the latter, I would say that our priorities should be to equip ourselves with historical understanding, theological knowledge, philosophical methods and spiritual humility so as to engage with the principal challenges to Christian faith and Catholic doctrine.
Contrary to what is increasingly assumed by opponents and advocates, Catholicism is not first and foremost about sexual ethics, or abortion, or liturgy, or justice and peace, or environmental stewardship. Rather it is about coming to know, to love and to serve God. Perhaps the rest follows, but it follows and does not lead, and nor is it an acceptable substitute for faith. That was the mistake of Pelagius: to believe that we can be saved by moral endeavor.
The true Catholic teaching is that without grace we cannot be saved, and that grace is freely given and unmerited, though it can be co-operated with: not by doing what we determine to be good, but by doing what we discern to be the command of God. And to determine this we need to engage in discussion with others, sharing and probing convictions. Such engagement is likely at times to be vigorous and robust, but so long as it is in fidelity to the historic faith received and handed on by the apostles, and taught by the Creeds and Councils, and is conducted in charity, then it is as sure as anything in this world could be. Certainly there is no rival to it in the pages of the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail, The Guardian or the Independent.
With all of this in mind I look forward to the future of Open House over the next twenty years serving the need of Scottish Catholics to think ‘out loud’ and in exchange with one another, but also mindful of the interest of other Christians. In the twenty years since the creation of OH, Scotland has drifted further from Christianity; and the Catholic Church is generally regarded as the principal remaining obstacle to full secularity and modernisation. This is as much a tribute to (or condemnation of) external voices as to internal ones, yet enough of a sense of principled opposition remains to build anew an authentic Scottish Catholic voice. As Sean Connery is reported to have said: “There is nothing like a challenge to bring out the best in us.”
John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy in the University of St Andrews. His two most recent books are Practical Philosophy (2009) and Reasonable Faith (2010).