bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2003-11-17 09:17 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2003-11-17 09:17 pm
Entry tags:
Lord save us from your Church (yet again) -- an interesting perspective
While reading through my E-mail I found an interesting document called Blueprint for Vatican III at the National Catholic Reporter web site.
The following excerpt from the document has caused me to look at some of my rantings about the institutional structure of the Church in a new light.
"the need is for a new ecclesiology which focuses in on the sinfulness of the church -- the church as a community of sinners saved only by the grace of Jesus Christ. That is the great mystery of God: that so much good can be accomplished by such a sinful church. We have emphasized too much the holiness of the church, but we have failed to bring out what the Fathers used to bring out: the mystery of the church that is at one and the same time holy and sinful; virgin and prostitute; source of inspiration and of scandal. This is the real church: a community of sinners struggling for holiness. The great saints of the Bible were equally great sinners. We want a church without sin, but that will only come about at the end of time."
-- Anonymous contributor to "Blueprint for Vatican III" in the National Catholic Reporter
What struck me is that there is a clear sense on the writer's part that the authoritarian governance, massive inequity and injustice, and outright scandal of the modern Church are in fact sinful; and yet the Church still manages to do a great deal of good despite it all. This dichotomy well describes us individually; we might do well to use it to describe the Church corporately. Only then might we be inclined to forgive the Church for what our Episcopal brothers and sisters refer to as "the evil done on our behalf".
I suppose that Catholics will have to come to a similar understanding with the Church if it is to survive the latest wave of scandal and the impossible situations into which it regularly puts both its clergy and laity.
But I suppose I'm simply not done being angry. I sometimes think that Catholicism is being slowly strangled by the hierarchy, and if blind obedience to them is all that matters perhaps it deserves to die. The only thing that will save the good works of the Church is to let the Spirit do its job and not bury it in dictatorial mumbo-jumbo.
I suppose in the end we are called to forgive the Church for its sinfulness. But that will prove to be as hard for us to "hate the sin, love the sinner" as it has proven for those within the church to do when they preach the same at us.
The following excerpt from the document has caused me to look at some of my rantings about the institutional structure of the Church in a new light.
"the need is for a new ecclesiology which focuses in on the sinfulness of the church -- the church as a community of sinners saved only by the grace of Jesus Christ. That is the great mystery of God: that so much good can be accomplished by such a sinful church. We have emphasized too much the holiness of the church, but we have failed to bring out what the Fathers used to bring out: the mystery of the church that is at one and the same time holy and sinful; virgin and prostitute; source of inspiration and of scandal. This is the real church: a community of sinners struggling for holiness. The great saints of the Bible were equally great sinners. We want a church without sin, but that will only come about at the end of time."
-- Anonymous contributor to "Blueprint for Vatican III" in the National Catholic Reporter
What struck me is that there is a clear sense on the writer's part that the authoritarian governance, massive inequity and injustice, and outright scandal of the modern Church are in fact sinful; and yet the Church still manages to do a great deal of good despite it all. This dichotomy well describes us individually; we might do well to use it to describe the Church corporately. Only then might we be inclined to forgive the Church for what our Episcopal brothers and sisters refer to as "the evil done on our behalf".
I suppose that Catholics will have to come to a similar understanding with the Church if it is to survive the latest wave of scandal and the impossible situations into which it regularly puts both its clergy and laity.
But I suppose I'm simply not done being angry. I sometimes think that Catholicism is being slowly strangled by the hierarchy, and if blind obedience to them is all that matters perhaps it deserves to die. The only thing that will save the good works of the Church is to let the Spirit do its job and not bury it in dictatorial mumbo-jumbo.
I suppose in the end we are called to forgive the Church for its sinfulness. But that will prove to be as hard for us to "hate the sin, love the sinner" as it has proven for those within the church to do when they preach the same at us.