Defending a diverse church

Catholic New Times, June 5, 2005 by Rosemary Radford Ruether

There are good reasons to fear that Pope Benedict XVI will even more actively pursue repression of dissenting views in the Roman Catholic Church than the previous papacy. As head of the Holy Office, Joseph Ratzinger established clear lack of tolerance of dissent on many of the most pressing issues of church life such as contraception and women's ordination. He has insisted that homosexuality is intrinsically evil and opposes any openness to gay marriage. He is generally ill-disposed to feminism, Seeking to re-establish an essentialist anthropology of the "complementarity" of masculine and feminine as the proper relation of the sexes.

As is evident in the Aug. 6, 2000 encyclical Dominus Jesus, he is hostile to any form of inter-religious dialogue that suggests that other traditions have equal claims to truth. Meetings with religious leaders of other faith traditions that distinguished the previous papacy are unlikely to happen under the present pope. This puts a distinct chill on the inter-religious dialogues that are presently taking place in many parts of the world with Catholic participation, including the Parliament for the World's Religions.

Ratzinger also has pursued a long string of investigations of theologians, creating an atmosphere of fear of open discussion on controverted issues in Catholic theological seminaries and departments of religion. Key thinkers of our times, such as Leonardo Boff and Ivone Gebara of Brazil and Charles Curran in the United States, have been pushed out of teaching positions in Catholic institutions and publications, silenced and marginalized, often having to seek employment outside the Catholic Church.

The overall picture is that of an authoritarian who not only defends particular positions in current theological and moral debates, but who insists that there is only one right view and that any dissent or even discussion is forbidden.

Ratzinger has suggested that it would be preferable to have a smaller church but one that is more uniformly "orthodox" on these controverted issues. What does that mean? Will it take the form, not only of silencing of dissenting theologians, but more active efforts to expel organizations that promote alternative views on homosexuality, contraception and abortion, women's ordination and the like, while claiming a Catholic identity? Will there be more active efforts to declare that supporters of organizations such as the Women's Ordination Conference or Call to Action are excommunicated? What of publications that support diverse views as Catholics? In other words, will there be more active efforts to declare "unCatholic" organizations and forums of Catholic opinion that are open to diverse views but as unofficially Catholic do not easily fall within institutional reach?

I believe that progressive Catholics need to do more than grumble in private. They should find out in more detail the new pope's views and actions and be prepared to formulate their critique of those views publicly and in detail. There needs to be much more careful attention to the basis for the pope's teaching authority in areas which have nothing to do with core theological doctrine, but are primarily matters of claims about "human nature" and "natural law." These are all areas where the possibility of final and "infallible" teaching is of dubious validity. As in the response to the 1968 anti-birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, with which 80 per cent of Catholics disagree, it needs to be understood that there are areas of teaching that cannot be dictated in a final and authoritative matter. When the Vatican insists on views that violate the consciences of the majority of Catholics, one should ask whether such teaching is "not received?"

There also needs to be an active defence of the appropriateness of a diverse church, a church which is open to dissent and debate, where teaching is understood to be provisional rather than final, something that the Catholic Church has found no difficulty in doing in relation to issues of war, but for some reason rejects in questions of sexuality. Catholicism is not a Roman sect. A vision of the universal church needs to be laid out and defended that includes cultural as well as intellectual diversity, where people can disagree in good conscience and not feel they are cut off from the sacraments and from the love of God.

Finally, there needs to be active organizing to defend a diverse church. National episcopacies need to be strengthened to counteract the trend toward papal centralization that characterized the past papacy. Lay organizations concerned to maintain an open church need to work with sympathetic bishops. There also needs to be even more creative ways to organize forums and media of discussion at the local, national and international level.

The patterns of silencing and passive submission to unjust authority need to be actively resisted, alternative views actively discussed and defended. Catholics must unlearn the habits of fear that were being dispelled 30 years ago, but have recently been aggressively reinforced. Let us hope that the kinds of active repression of dissent I am suggesting will not turn out to be the new pope's agenda, but progressive Catholics need to be ready, if this turns out to be the case. While we can hope for the best, we should prepare for the worst.