Impaired communions

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2004 by David M. Bossman

In August, 2003, the Episcopal Church of America's General Convention approved the ordination of an openly gay bishop and approved as well the blessing of same-sex unions. Facing a similar decision, the Anglican Communion of England pressured the withdrawal of a gay priest from nomination to the episcopacy. Responses to each action today challenge the broad network of loosely-associated provinces within the Anglican-Episcopal Communion. The tremor felt around the world is similar in many ways to the reaction to the ordination of women to the priesthood, which earlier threatened to fracture the Communion. Anglican priests who opposed the ordination of women, were subsequently welcomed into the Roman Church, which adamantly continues to oppose both the ordination of women and gays alike. Traditional fault lines between the Roman and Anglican Churches now seem less significant, as issues of women and gays bridge the gap for those who fight against change. But within both churches, the fault lines impair communion and threaten separation. The way forward is anything but clear at present, but progress is real and notable.

History often lends perspective when addressing hot-button issues in the present. One such historical study, CATHOLICISM AND AMERICAN FREEDOM (London, UK: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003) by Notre Dame University history Professor John T. McGreevy, provides insight into the positions taken by the Catholic hierarchy regarding the issue of slavery in the 19th century. It is difficult to believe today that the Catholic hierarchy actually supported the institution of slavery. Yet McGreevy sadly observes:

   Like most all Christians, Catholics in the early nineteenth
   century faced few restrictions on their ability to own slaves.
   [S]lavery itself, as confirmed by Apostle and Saint Paul,
   did not violate either the natural law or church teaching. In
   a theological tradition that distinguished itself from
   Protestantism by claims of constancy, any shift in the Catholic
   position on slavery faced formidable obstacles [49].

It is interesting to learn that "the Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Baptist churches had important antislavery wings, while the Catholic did not" (52). Accordingly, "most Catholics accepted slavery in principle, with even twentieth-century theologians declaring slavery 'not in itself intrinsically wrong'" (56). Even though in 1839 Pope Gregory XVI published an apostolic letter banning Catholics from participating in the slave trade (importation of slaves had already been banned in the United States more than thirty years before), he did not prohibit Catholics from owning slaves. McGreevy adds: "Studies of membership lists for American abolitionist organizations in the 1830s find few Catholics, and not one prominent American Catholic urged immediate abolition before the Civil War" (51). The reasoning would be totally unthinkable today: "Catholics' fears of disorder led to the calculation that societal stability outweighed any benefit to be gained from immediate emancipation" (52).

A critical cultural issue that motivated much of traditional Catholic practice was rooted in the collective v. the personalist view of human morality, so characteristic of many traditional, pre-Enlightenment societies. McGreevy points out how this worked:

   Catholic opposition to abolition cannot be reduced to the
   particular American racial dynamic. Many Catholic intellectuals
   around the world accepted slavery as a legitimate,
   if tragic, institution. This acceptance rested upon the pervasive
   fear of liberal individualism and social disorder that
   so shaped Catholic thought during the nineteenth century,
   along with the anti-Catholicism of many abolitionists [52].

This builds upon what McGreevy speaks of as a view of human freedom that liberals idealized but traditional Catholics eschewed: "Drawing on Aristotle as mediated through Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catholics saw moral choice and personal development as inseparable from virtues nurtured in families and churches" (36), leading to "Catholics' uneasiness with a liberal emphasis on individual autonomy" (37). Horace Mann, a leading American educational reformer, drew out the tension between liberal education and the institution of slavery:

   It is impossible for free, thorough, universal education to
   coexist with slavery as for two bodies to occupy the same
   space at the same time. Slavery would abolish education,
   if it should invade a free state; education would abolish
   slavery, if it could invade a slave state" (cited in
   McGreevy: 38).

It is not surprising, then, that Mann concluded, Catholics threaten the common school system. About this, Mann comments: "When Protestantism arose, freedom of opinion for each, and tolerance for all, were the elements that gave it vitality and strength. The avowed doctrine of Catholicism was, that men could not think for themselves." Accordingly, Mann drives home the point: "The Catholic Church opposes everything which favors democracy and the natural rights of man. It hates our free churches, free press, and above all, our free schools" (McGreevy: 39).