Pro Vita Sua

Seán Fagan is in his eighties but he writes and thinks like a young man, a wise young man with buckets of experience behind him.

I have just finished reading his book What happened to sin? Originally written in 1977, he has since updated it in 2008.

I really don't know where to start. It is such a relevant and inspirational book that it is hard to see anyone of good faith taking issue with it.

One of his other books, Does Morality Change?, originally written in 1997, was condemned by the Vatican (CDF) on its republication in 2003, on the following grounds (as reported by the Irish bishops):

“the denial of the binding force of the Magisterium [Rome] on conscience”; “the uncritical acceptance of the tendency ‘to substitute a dynamic and more evolutionary concept of nature for a static one’,”; “the effective rejection of the church’s understanding of the natural law (illuminated by revelation)”; “the explicit denial of moral absolutes, specially those concrete acts which are intrinsically wrong”; and “the promotion of a false understanding of conscience”.

I would have thought that these sound more like grounds for praise than condemnation. Of course, they are a hostile presentation of Seán Fagan's ideas by a power-mad bureaucracy that feels threatened by him. They fail to present the inspirational context in which these ideas are put forward, and they fail completely to see that Seán Fagan's thinking could be the salvation of a church which is failing in its duty to its members and which even some of its own highest officials acknowledge is rotten at parts of its core.

I found What happened to sin? the most inspirational book I have read since John Robinson's Honest to God. It is a game changer. Don't be put off by the use of the word sin, and you could even dispense with the divine in its content, and you would still have a programme for good (Godly?) living to bring you in sight of the Promised Land.

I read it as an unbeliever, but with an eye to what its thinking might mean for the renewal of the Roman Catholic Church on the lines promised by Vatican II some half a century ago.

It is a plea/recipe for individual moral responsibility in a buck passing and uncaring world. It debunks the power-enhancing strategems of church administrations over the last decades, centuries even, in favour of person-based moral growth.

It is a disgrace that this man has been silenced, though not very effectively it would seem. It is a sad reflection on the moral pygmies who reported him, those who silenced him, and those, who by their own silence, consent to the outrageous treatment of this holy man.

Honest to God

John A T Robinson (1919-1983)
This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Honest to God and the 30th anniversary of the death of its author, John Robinson.

Along with Paul Tillich's Shaking of the Foundations, John Robinson's Honest to God constituted my Mass time reading. Although it was written in a popular vein, Robinson's book was a theological ground breaker. His position of Anglican Bishop of Woolwich gave a sort of continuity underpinning to a book that represented a radical break with the concept of an external personal omnipotent interfering God.

Robinson's God was internalised and infinitely more credible. For me his God turned out to be the halfway house between yesterday's belief and today's unbelief. It was a sort of staging post where you could let go of the pre-Vatican II God of the old testament and take on board a God that didn't scare the shit out of you and who was complicit in your validation of yourself during what were belatedly formative years.

I will always be grateful to John Robinson for opening that door and reassuring me that stepping through into the light would not have me instantly smote from on high.

It is good that his anniversaries are being remembered this year as he has sort of slipped from view since the spiritually turbulent 1960s to which he contributed so much.

Vatican II - in prospect

Click for larger image
I was looking for something else when I found this loose in my old Leabhar Aifrinn (1958 edition). It is the official prayer for the faithful for the then forthcoming Vatican Council.

In retrospect there are many ironies.

It envisaged a central role for the Holy Spirit, but not quite the one that turned out. The whole tone is one of assertion of traditional teaching rather than the revolution that nearly came off.

I'm not quite sure, had the outcome been known in advance, that John Charles would have so readily subscribed to the admonition to "humbly and sincerely accept and loyally fulfil whatever the Council may enact". Of course, in the event, they didn't.

There was also the expectation that the Council would in some way bring the separated brethern back into the fold and under Papal authority.

And, finally, Pope John XXIII had attached a hefty ten year indulgence to the prayer, so there must have been a fair expectation that it would deliver the goods.

ACP and all that

The relatively recently formed Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) is a most interesting development in the tortured history of Irish Catholicism.

It could not have happened in John Charles's day, and more's the pity. But the "moral authority" of the RC Church, for which read "clerical hellfire", has weakened in recent times for obvious reasons.

It is also now fifty years since the calling of Vatican II and it is all too obvious that the inspiration and hope of renewal sparked by that Council have not only petered out (scuse the pun) but have been actively traduced by a centrist power clique who place the continuity and supremacy of the institution above the welfare of its flock (scuse the mutton metaphor).

In pulling up the drawbridge, the Vatican has forbidden even discussion of a number of controversial issues, and in response to reasoned attempts to raise these issues in a way seen as vital to a healthy community, has called down holy fire and brimstone on the heads of those who have dared to raise them above the parapet.

The ACP, which now numbers around a thousand priests, is attempting to initiate this discussion within the RC church in the long term interest of the church itself (defined as the people of God rather than the Roman Curia).

Their site is well worth a visit, as is Fr. Hoban's brief exposé of their raison d'être. You will find many thoughtful posts and comments.

The discussion is on much more polite lines than I am normally given to myself, and it is conducted in a context of caring and of loyalty to what might best be described as the Church of Christ. That does not in any way inhibit those who feel the ACP itself is a source of heresy and potential schism from forcefully expressing their views.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the emergence of the ACP is the deafening silence of the Irish hierarchy. The emergence of the ACP has certainly put it up to the bishops, but these have so far been found wanting. The recent posting by the ACP of Hans Küng's letter to the bishops worldwide may be an indication of their impatience at the lack of response of the Irish bishops to ACP invitations to dialogue. You could be forgiven for thinking the bishops are busy circling the wagons.

This is all the more surprising as Ireland launches into the Fiftieth International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin this month. The theme of the Congress is "communion". Communion with whom?

Gaudium et Spes - NOT

The ultimate battle over the betrayal of Vatican II is now being played out on the four green fields.

Those relatively few brave souls who have tried to keep the flame and promise of Vatican II alight are now being arrogantly and unjustifiably extinguished.

It would appear that these brave souls have as much chance of successfully reforming the current totalitarian leadership of the Roman Catholic Church as the young Ratzinger had in resisting the German military of his day.

Into Thine Arms ..

Presented above is a revised version of the Papal Arms of Benedict XVI which takes into account developments since his accession to the Papacy. You can catch up on the original here. The revised symbolism is blindingly simple:

St. Alphonsus Luguori: patron of theologians and founder of the Redemptorists.
The Vulture: picking away at Vatican II
The Conche: an admonition to listen to the sea rather than the See.