Hidebound and Dangerous

The Dallas Morning News devoted the entire back page of the Points section in Sunday’s edition to advocacy for a return to traditional faith, Christian faith in general and Catholic faith in particular. Editorial writer Rod Dreher doesn’t say so but he is apparently an adherent of Opus Dei, the always controversial Catholic organization that found favor with the two most recent Popes and was made infamous by its depiction in The Da Vinci Code. Dreher not only wants a return to the Latin Mass, he wants to undo much of the reform introduced by the Second Vatican Council. He calls orthodoxy “right belief,” an unusual definition and not one found in Webster’s. He is openly derisive of any hint of departure from traditional church doctrine, for him that preceding Vatican II. Dreher represents the views of a growing number of young priests in my Church, a view that appeals to many Bishops too but a trend I find disturbing, not what our Church needs in this day of crisis. It demands unquestioning acceptance of not just doctrine but policies that should be and are being challenged. I don’t see how a retreat can work. We have an increasingly literate laity that has learned to think for itself. The days of blind faith are over. We can no longer be expected to look the other way when clergy behave badly. We will not let go without question decisions or even moral judgments that fall short of our notions of reason and justice. We will demand accountability and not just to God. The clergy are stewards of our Church but so are we. When we see something wrong we will speak up and expect to be heard. Vatican II did not go too far. It did not go far enough. Church officials have long retained far too much devotion to their own authority, even when it threatens the foundations of the Church. It is a misguided obsession that has been tearing the Church apart for a thousand years. It is at the root of the sex abuse scandals that so plague American Catholics today. It has rendered the Church irrelevant in Western Europe. It has not done that in the United States, not yet, but as Bishops dig in their heels and turn a deaf ear to the concerns of the laity they are themselves becoming irrelevant in the daily lives of ordinary people. Public opinion does matter, even in the Church. We have serious issues that are not addressed in a mindless return to orthopraxy, what Dreher calls “right practice.” Controversies such as the role of women, mandatory celibacy, and the indefensible practice of allowing divorce but calling it annulment are not going away. These new conservatives would tell me my faith is not legitimate, it cannot lead me to God. I think they are wrong. I pray that they are wrong. I don’t object to tradition. There is much that I find comforting in rites that have been largely unchanged for centuries. Nor do I reject the Latin Mass for those who prefer it. It is beautiful as anyone who has ever heard a really good choir sing Schubert’s Mass in G can attest. But I would rather hear the prayers in words I can understand, most of the time anyway. It is unthinking acceptance of wrongheaded practice I object to. God gave me a mind. I have to think he intended me to use it. We long ago rejected the notion of “Devine Right of Kings,” an idea promulgated by the same people Rod Dreher would now have us uncritically follow. He’s wrong. Kings could and did do evil things. So did Popes. They still do. They are men and like other men are subject to all the frailties and temptations of human nature. Because of their office they should be respected but they do not belong on pedestals. That is idolatry.