This thought keeps recurring. Due to people I know and love posting articles about the Church on Facebook, I have found myself reading a great deal of uncomfortable material. These articles and the comments they attract are causing me to wonder (a) just how typical are these people of intelligent Catholics? (b) is there any of the spirit of the Enlightenment in the church at all?
These reflections were sparked by an article in the Washington Post written by one Ashley E Maguire. Here is the extract that annoyed me, and where I stopped...
"So while most Catholics worldwide heard the news of the pope stepping down and gave him a giant, global air-hug, a few dissenting groups used the news to get attention by banging their pans and loudly rejecting church teaching and disrespecting the head of their faith. It was unkind.
Mr. Kristof and friends are wringing their hands about what we call “irreformable, infallible moral teachings of the ordinary magisterium.”
He might want to look that up."
The writer then goes on to say that the magisterium is a jolly good thing and nothing's going to change. He rightly comments on some of the good things the church does - service to others, the poor, etc. but also says how it upholds marriage etc etc. Also, he cites things about Catholics that are true of all followers of Christ - "be not conformed to the world" is fine, it's a good thing to try and live by, when the world is wrong - but conforming to an historical worldview that was wrong in its attitudes towards women, homosexuals etc. isn't quite so smart. It is blatantly untrue to say that nothing has changed for 2,000 years - the Church has changed its mind a fair number of times since then. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of God by Ute Ranke-Hellman is full of examples of this. The magisterium is what ties the clergy into some of the more repressive teachings of the church, and effectively tries to deny Catholics freedom of conscience on many subjects.
It may be because I was brought up in a parish run by a man whose early theological education was Protestant - but I always understood that examining your conscience was where you started... and nobody ever discussed what you did if your conscience came into conflict with the magisterium - because there was a strict "don't mention the magisterium" policy in the parish and in RE lessons at school. If everyone in the church thinks the magisterium is jolly good and everything it says is right, then really I have nothing in common with them, and my Catholic sentiments are purely an accident of birth and a cultural residue. A pity, since Catholicism's been in my DNA since St Patrick converted Ireland. The writer of the article cited seems to have that "Catholics are special" attitude which I've heard more of recently.... I am no longer a Catholic, I was not special, and even though I didn't know about it, I would never have wished to obey the ordinary magisterium. It's a pity, but there it is.
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