Grace & Peace!
I’ll be honest, here. I’m an Anglican (of the Episcopalian vairety). I was raised a Congregationalist, educated at a Baptist school, attended a Lutheran church for four years, and am now Anglican. I consider myself Anglo-Catholic. I cannot deny that I feel drawn to Roman Catholicism and have lately been seriously questioning myself regarding moving towards Rome (it seems that my spiritual life is leading in that direction). That’s the principle reason I joined these forums.
But I must confess that the things that constantly give me pause, that prevent me from making any further movement towards Rome are few, but they are, to me, important. And they have little to do with the questions asked above. I know the difference between dulia, hyperdulia, and latria. I say the rosary. I love the Theotokos. I have a particular love for Sts Thomas, Athanasius, Clement of Alexandria, Pseudo Dionysius, John of the Cross. I have a love for Origen, Marsilio Ficino, Jean Borella, Hans Urs von Balthasar. I believe in transubstantiation. I have a love for church tradition and enjoy reading about the theology and metaphysics of the faith. But here are my issues. Perhaps someone can address them? Forgive me if I sound critical–I do not mean to.
1–A perceived lack of compassion. It seems to me, on these boards in particular, that Catholic witness puts an emphasis on orthodox belief and behavior to the detriment of love and compassion. I do not believe that the truth is multiple, I do not believe that morality is relative, but I do believe that, in terms of moral theology in particular, that the moment that morals become an end to themselves, when holding the right moral views are the end of moral theology, then what is advocated is the creation of moral robots. Morality without love is a clanging cymbal. Empty. Meaningless.
I understand that the magesterium of the church must promulgate a moral theology that aims towards perfection, but to do so with absolutism, to do so without recognizing that babes need milk and the mature need meat is to reduce the complexity of humanity and of human individualities to untenable binary oppositions–faithful-unfaithful, moral-immoral, good person-bad person. William Blake writes, “One law for the lion and the ox is oppression.” And he’s right. Paul writes, “All things are permissible, but not all things are profitable.” Moral law is clear–granted. But it seems that moral law, without an individual conscience guided by love, is relatively worthless and reduces the faith to merely a behavior modification system.
2–An attitude that discourages religious questioning and inquiry. It seems to me (and I’ll be honest, I do not find this exclusively in the RC Church) that moral questioning, theological questioning, is frowned upon in Roman Catholicism. How is one to grow without asking questions, without putting one’s mind and heart and soul into the fearful crucible of doubt? How will we mature as Christians if we are always satisfied with the easy milk of moral theology, if we do not seek the meat of challenge? It’s one thing to accept doctrine and magesterium. It’s another to take it for granted. It seems to me that doctrine and magesterium should be lights in the night of faith, but we should not, as moths to the flame, hover close to these lights and refuse to progress to the blinding dawn of greater intimacy with God through Christ. They should illuminate the heights of our aspiration, our faith, to enable us, by grace, to climb there. Otherwise, what good will they do us? We can profess the gospel with our lips, we can make moral pronouncments all we want, but if we don’t live it, if it’s not a part of us, if it lives on the surface of our faith rather than in the depths of our being, then I’m afraid that we have put doctrine before love and squandered our faith on good feelings and moral/theological complacency that allows us to look down on those who believe differently, or behave differently, to patronize them, or worse, to simply reject them as worthless out of hand. This, of course, is the struggle of faith–but shouldn’t faith be a struggle? Isn’t the life of faith compared to an atheltic contest by Paul?
Continued…
