I think that we have to be very careful not to blame the Church for the changes in society. We can certainly hold the Church accountable for how she responds to those changes, but not for the changes themselves. Let’s just examine three important historical periods from among the many.
During the Middle Ages the laity was very lax in its adherence to the faith. In fact, a lot of “religious” practices were superstitious nonsense, which often led to knee-jerk reactions by conservative forces that dragged people in the opposite direction and into heresy. This was not created by the Church. It was a social reality. The aristocracy and the merchant classes were vying for power. Corruption was the order of the day.
The Muslims were invading Europe from the East and West, not always for religious reasons. Most of the wars between Muslims and Christians were about economics. They had more to do with control over certain metropolitan markets and travel routes than about faith. While the popes were struggling to protect the faith of the Europeans, monarchs were struggling to protect their economic interests. Somehow the two interests ended up blending, at times making it impossible to distinguish what the ultimate goal was. The common Muslim and Christian was confused about the reasons for these wars. He was being told that it was all for God, but he did not see an increase in faith on either side, Muslim or Christian, what he saw was an increase in political and economic power, which did not trickle down to the working man.
Sexual abuses and a blatant disregard for sexual integrity was very common. Simply put, polite people did not talk about it. That does not mean that it was not there.
Fast-forward to the Protestant Reformation. A new age of enlightenment comes in. People realize that that both king and pope have been playing games with them. As a reaction there come into play forces that turned out to be heretical. On the one hand you had the Lutheran and Calvinist trying to salvage Christianity by embracing Sola Scriptura. However, on the other hand, you had two powerful Catholic movements that were also leading people astray, Quietists and Illuminati. These were knee-jerk Catholic conservatives. They represented the common man’s search for God in a world that was filled with confusing messages. They decided to stop listening. Unfortunately, they also stopped listening to reason and ended up in serious moral and spiritual trouble.
These forces were conceived by the Church. The social confusion of the time gave birth to them. With the eruption of a new worldview, poor education and even poorer catechesis that should have equipped the masses to deal with this new worldview, the result was the anti-clerical revolution that reached its highest expression during the French Revolution and ushered in a renewal of the Church.
Finally, you have the 20th century. With the expansion of Europe to the Americas, Asia, and Africa new social and economic challenges arise on the scene. Science also began to make great strides. Once again, man turns in on himself and becomes his own god. This gave rise to the Modernists, Socialism and Communism.
The Church tried to face down these forces through condemnation. This worked for a handful of people who did not need the condemnations. As often happens, you end up preaching to the choir. Those who were embracing this newest form of enlightenment were not the people reading the condemnations of Modernism, atheistic Socialism and Communism. The person reading them was the person who was not involved in any of it.
As far as religious education, what happened was disastrous. In the 1950s the Church realized that it was not enough for people to know the answers to doctrinal questions. For centuries, those answers had been available and Catholics still did not have a solid and healthy spiritual life. Most Catholics were people of observance. They followed the rules and observed the traditions. But their life of prayer, asceticism and charity was very limited. Those who were truly contemplatives, ascetics and missionaries in society were reduced to the religious and the ordained. The average Catholic was content to go to mass on Sunday and follow the rules during the week. It became evident that the personal encounter with Christ that the saints had was not the common experience, as it should be.
The unfortunate outcome was another knee-jerk reaction. We took away the formulas and concepts and tried to create “experiences” for people to encounter Christ. That was not the answer. You cannot have faith without reason and reason without faith. As I always tell my students, every Catholic must do theology, not study it. The study of theology is one thing. The doing of theology is another. The man of faith must seek understanding. The experience with the divine must be followed by the search for understanding its meaning and its application in daily life. This is what great men and women like Teresa of Calcutta, John Paul II, Giana Molla and others exemplify for us today.
We cannot blame the Church for what is happening in the world. Catholics, like every other people of faith live in this world. What we must do is to help the Catholic embrace the two movements that will keep him on the right path, contemplation and recollection. Pointing fingers has never helped anyone become a saint.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
