Dr. Larry Chapp is a retired professor of theology. He taught for twenty years at DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania. He now owns and manages, with his wife, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. Dr. Chapp received his doctorate from Fordham University in 1994 with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar
The issues involved in the current synod are foundational in nature, just as in St. Augustine’s time, and involve theologically incommensurate understandings of Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, and soteriology.
The senior writer at Commonweal magazine, Paul Baumann, has penned a thoughtful essay, titled “Pope Francis & Augustine”, on the current acrimonious debates between various ecclesial factions on the topic of the papacy of Pope Francis and the current synod. I am mentioned extensively in the article, mostly in a positive way, but Baumann does offer up some criticisms of my various pieces on Francis and the synod in various publications.
I would like to respond to those criticisms but will do so in the same spirit of irenic dialogue that is exemplified in the essay. In the process, I hope to make some further comments as to why so many folks from my side of the theological aisle have issues with the synod. And to show that those critiques have real legs, are theologically substantive, and are not merely a splenetic Festivus-style airing of grievances.
The example of St. Augustine
The overall theme of Baumann’s essay is one which I hope most would agree: the necessity to reinforce the bonds of charity between the various ecclesial factions and to foster an air of civility that can help us heal our divisions. To that end, he devotes the bulk of his essay to a discussion of how the early Church was also mired in numerous interminable theological debates, many of which were not only rancorous but also physically violent. Baumann then focuses on St. Augustine and his world, leaning heavily on the wonderful biography of Augustine by Peter Brown, a biography I too have long treasured.
Brown notes that Augustine was frequently involved in many sharp and often polemical debates. He had severe disagreements with St. Jerome, for example, and his joustings with the Donatists and the Pelagians are legendary. But strangely, Baumann goes on to hold up Augustine as a model for how to engage in dialogue with one’s theological critics. It is a strained analogy for our times since it takes a great deal of historical revisionism to repristinate Augustine as someone who tried to meet his critics in a spirit of compromise.
It is true that Peter Brown does say that, at times, Augustine did try to dialogue with his interlocutors and that his homilies were routinely geared toward reaching out to everyone in his congregation taking due consideration for the theological immaturity of the many therein. But it is a big stretch to go from there to the conclusion that Augustine is a model for the kind of theological civility we need today. Because Augustine, quite frequently, was anything but civil.
But I do not point this out in order to diminish Augustine in any way. Because what Augustine understood was there were foundational and critically important theological truths at stake. His often fierce rhetoric, rather than being a sign of an uncontrolled spirit of acrimony, was instead the result of his awareness of the multiple ecclesial crises of his time—crises that required a firm rebuttal to theological heresy.
In other words, Augustine understood that there is a true and a false form of irenicism and a true and false form of civility. There is also a false form of pluralism that confuses the legitimate need for a free space of open discourse with a mere latitudinarian relativism. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his groundbreaking book After Virtue pointed out that real pluralism involves an “integrated dialogue of intersecting viewpoints” rather than the mere toleration of “an unharmonious mélange of ill-assorted fragments.” Real pluralism is a very hard thing to achieve since it involves a set of non-negotiable truths all parties agree upon, a foundational consensus which then opens up a space for all ensuing theological disagreements to proceed as a real dialogue rather than a cage match to the death.
Foundational issues and disagreements
Therefore, the current debates–often sharp and blunt at once–are not going to go away via a Rodney King kind of appeal: “Can’t we all just get along?” Because the issues involved are foundational in nature, just as in Augustine’s time, and involve theologically incommensurate understandings of Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, soteriology and so forth. There is, in other words, no true pluralism in play here since the disagreements display that there is not fundamental agreement on a set of non-negotiables.
Certainly, we must be civil and charitable, as in all proper human relationships. And most certainly there are those on all sides of the debate who are neither. But in my communications with many synod participants, the conversations on the synod floor have been civil and charitable. It is also true that we should not view the many knowledgeable pundits on all sides who are writing for public consumption as somehow engaging in uncivil discourse just because their often very pointed disagreements display a certain level of theological conflict. For how could there not be some degree of conflict when central truths are being discussed? After all, we are not talking here about disagreements over matters of ecclesial taste but of how to interpret the constitutive truths of the faith.
At the risk of engaging in schoolyard logic–“You started it!”–there does seem to me to be a tendency to view the critics of the synod as the primary culprits in stirring up the conflicts and that the synodal enthusiasts have been a model of decorous discourse. The Pope himself has even coined a new pejorative insult to describe his conservative critics. He has referred to them as “indietrists” (“backwardists”). Whatever that means and to whomever he is referring is left undefined, but one is left with the general impression that it is just an undifferentiated and rather nasty way of being dismissive. I could cite other examples from many left-leaning publications that routinely characterize conservative Catholics as homophobes and misogynists, just because we disagree with the moral normalization of same-sex relationships and women’s ordination. But this will suffice for now.
That said, I have little problem with the fact that the debates are often conflictual and affirm that the sincere Catholics on all sides are simply jostling for the inside rail in order to press their advantage. There are good ways and bad ways of doing this, but the mere fact of conflict is not a sign of dysfunction, but its opposite. The passions stirred up indicate an ongoing reservoir of faith where all participants in the conversation have skin in the game since they are vested in the health of the Church as they see it. Are we not engaged in an exercise in “parrhesia”? And must parrhesia always imply a non-conflictual form of discourse? I think not, because limiting parrhesia only to those Catholics who rig the process of dialogue from the start by accounting all such conflicts as signs of an ill-tempered spirit is no parrhesia at all. Indeed, to so limit parrhesia to the realm of the non-conflictual would have eliminated Augustine from the get-go.
Understanding the synodal critics
Baumann mentions me early on in his essay and kindly states that among the many papal and synodal critics I am more measured in my criticisms than others. I am not certain that this is true but will gladly accept the compliment and thank him for leading with a carrot rather than a stick. But there are some things he claims about my writing I think are incorrect and so I want to respond. Not because I am thin-skinned and need to defend my honor or some such nonsense, but because his criticisms involve misunderstandings of the synodal critics in general.
After discussing many of the positions I take and indicating some agreement, he states:
Chapp puts the problem baldly, but it is hard to disagree with his basic assessment. It is easier to question his peevish dismissal of Church reformers as childish and his blithe insistence that sanctity is the only real solution to the current Church crisis.
There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s begin with his assertion of my peevishness. I am assuming he is referring to my last article in this column wherein I note that too many of the discussions surrounding the synod seem to come from a fundamental posture of perpetual grievance toward many Church teachings. I then compare this posture to that of the adolescent who is often and similarly in a state of rebellion and grievance against various strictures.
I do not think this is a “peevish” dismissal of anything. Instead, it is a descriptive observation of an internal ecclesial dynamic of constant ridicule of Church teaching that has been ongoing in the Church since the end of the Council. I do not think it is always wrong to criticize the Church. I have done so as have many others. Nor do I think it wrong to sometimes criticize the Church in very trenchant ways. Nevertheless, criticism is one thing, but the now decades-long pogrom against Church teachings, especially in her moral theology and ecclesiology, by the Catholic Left evinces in my view precisely this spirit of perpetual grievance that I do indeed find spiritually immature. Disagree with that view all you want, but I think declaring it “peevish” is itself rather peevish.
Related to this issue is Baumann’s own blithe assumption that those to whom my words of criticism are directed are indeed “reformers”. But that is precisely the contested point. Are those who seek full LGBTQ “inclusion” in the Church and women’s ordination really reformers? Or are they instead cultural accommodationists who seek to change Church teaching in dangerous secularizing directions? Once again, disagreement on this point is legitimate, but it cannot merely be assumed that those who seek change are the “reformers”. In the Catholic Church, historically speaking, all true reforms have always been carried forward by returning to our roots in the central elements of Scripture and Tradition, not by pursuing a path of bowing to the latest trends.
Once again, the synodal critics see strong signs that what is being called for by the so-called “reformers” is a violation of this pattern for true reform. Disagree all you want with that view, but it is the nub of the issue and should not be dismissed as a “dismissal of reform”. It is the very question that needs to be addressed.
There is also his assertion that I am blithely asserting that sanctity is the “only” solution to the current crisis. I have made no such claim that sanctity is the “only” solution. But I do grant it a primacy over fixations concerning the internal governing structure of the Church. Once again, as with true “reform”, it is a question of returning to the Church’s roots and her primary mission of sanctifying and creating—via divine life—saints. The Church is in the sanctity business, and it is her chief aim to divinize both the world and individuals in the theosis that comes from inclusion into Christ.
Many saints and theologians have made similar claims concerning this primacy of sanctity as the fiery soul of the Church’s life, the lifeblood of the ecclesial body, and the vital principle that puts fire into the Church’s doctrinal and sacramental equations. It is this fact that causes the synodal critics to note a marked tendency to reverse this prioritization in favor of a focus on structures and bureaucratic processes. Many critics, for example, have noted the almost total absence in the synod’s Instrumentum Laboris of references to repentance, conversion of heart, and the universal call to holiness as the chief vocation of every one of the baptized. Instead, we are met with constant references to listening and dialogue which, though good in themselves and needed, are no substitute for the spiritual renewal that must be at the core of any true reform.
The woman after who I have patterned my life after, Dorothy Day, made similar points and has stated that what the Church needs, above all other considerations, is a “revolution of the heart”. And she then set about the business of living a radical form of Christianity that sought to do just that.
Church teaching is normative
Finally, Baumann states that the truths I am seeking to defend are not well served by appeals to authority and moral browbeating. He seems to be asserting that my various synodal criticisms play in that sandbox, and by implication, the criticisms of the synod by other tradition-minded Catholics.
But this is its own rather uncivil and pejorative claim. I reject the claim that my writings are larded with moral browbeating, and I do not see it in other synodal critics either. It can only be construed as such if one begins with the assumption that an insistence upon the preservation of the Church’s traditional, natural law moral theology is a form of browbeating. No sanctimonious claims to be personal sanctity have been made by me or others and certainly not any assertion of moral superiority. Is this what we have come to? That those who wish to defend Church teaching are, by that fact alone, to be construed as moral browbeaters?
Along these same lines, the last time I checked the Church does have a teaching authority and we are to give that teaching a primary voice in the conversation, if not a normative one. Once again, is this what we have come to? That the assertion that the Church’s magisterial voice be given pride of place and a presumption of truth until proven otherwise is to be dismissed as a simplistic appeal to authority?
This is unfair to the synodal critics who have put forward actual theological arguments in favor of their views. And, yes, those arguments take the normativity of magisterial teaching seriously. But they are far from simplistic for that reason.
Therefore, Baumann’s essay, though irenic in tone and largely respectful (for which I want to acknowledge gratitude) is nevertheless an apologia for one side of this debate. I have no problem with that. But as such it is just further evidence that the issues at stake are important and that disagreements, even sharp ones, are in the main healthy expressions of a faith that still matters.