CONFRONTING THE CHURCH'S PAST : An interview with Eamon Duffy - Interview

Commonweal, Jan 14, 2000 by Raymond De Souza

One of the Jewish historians at the Inquisition symposium made a devastating intervention when talking about the church asking forgiveness. He said, "I don't believe in forgiveness. I don't believe in God. I don't believe there is anyone to forgive us. In any case, I think when people ask for forgiveness they are very often asking to be let off. What I did not hear the pope say and what I have not heard any of you say is that the church is ashamed of what it did." He got an ovation for that. Everybody felt he had said a true thing.

* De Souza: What is the value then of this historical examination of conscience?

* Duffy: I think it is important. People do take note when the church admits that it got things wrong. There is a theological problem here which the theologians at the symposium were very conscious of and which is implicit in the relevant sections of the pope's apostolic letter on the millennium, where he says that the church must face up to its past and must admit that its children often got things wrong. All of us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, at the Inquisition symposium felt that this was an evasion.

Some of the theologians, for example, wanted us to say that the church had done terrible things and murdered people for their beliefs in the past but that was not the magisterium. But the Inquisition was an arm of the papacy, and it was the uniform teaching of the church for a thousand years that heretics should be punished physically. And the church got that wrong. That teaching-which was practical teaching, if not doctrinal teaching-is contrary to the teaching of Vatican II. The church changed its mind about this in 1965 and there is no escaping it. It really frightens the theologians to say that, because the church cannot change its mind. There is a fear that, if we say that the church changed its mind, then Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was right and the Second Vatican Council was apostasy. But that cannot be true. That is a problem for the theologians, not for the historians. The historians can all see that the church has actually changed its mind.

It is very, very awkward but you have to live with the awkwardness. I think we have to be able and willing to say with integrity that the church was wrong. I think that historical work has serious implications for theology. People will think less of a theology that does not confront history truthfully. If our account of the magisterium is such that it cannot take account of facts that everybody can see, then it is the theology that must change, not the history. We must not put ourselves in the theological position of saying, "It is better not to believe the historians." If your theology cannot face the truth, then it's not itself telling the truth. It just means that we've got it wrong and have to go back and rethink. I don't want to hammer that point, but this is an area where theologians are clearly having a problem at the moment with facing up to a changed perception of history.

* De Souza: If these theological dangers are on the horizon...