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Tradition Jettisoned
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11429 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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4 / 1994 |
1,574 Words |
| Author
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Robert L. Spaeth
Robert L. Spaeth is professor of liberal studies and
codirector of the Christian Humanism project at St. John's
University, Collegeville, Minnesota. He is coauthor (with R.W.
Franklin) of Virgil Michel: American Catholic (Liturgical
Press, 1988) and the author of Exhortations on Liberal
Education: A Dean Speaks His Mind (St. John's University,
1988); The Church and a Catholic's Conscience (Harper & Row,
1985) and No Easy Answers: Christians Debate Nuclear Arms
(Harper and Row, 1983). |
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, MICHELANGELO?
The Loss of Soul in Catholic Culture
Thomas Day
New York: Crossroad, 1993
240 pp., $19.95
What does today's American Catholic Church look like to outside observers? Many no doubt see a rigid hierarchy of celibate bishops following the dictates of a foreign leader in Rome who seems determined not to give an inch to modern reevaluations of moral values. It is not surprising. No abortion, says John Paul II, no birth control, no homosexuality, no divorce with remarriage, no married priests, no women priests--and the bishops loyally enforce those dictates. In short, a church refusing to compromise with modernity.
Of course, observers see some unruly Catholic laity as well: disgruntled individualists who seem to pick and choose among their leaders' mandates. Some Catholics do practice birth control, they do have abortions, they do divorce and remarry--but every church has its dissidents. To the outsider, what appears to matter is the official, institutional Catholic Church, and that church doggedly remains resistant to the trends of contemporary American life.
Catholic public opinion has never had much if any effect on the church hierarchy or teaching. Observers can only conclude that the Catholic Church is pretty much as it has been for many centuries: unchanging, traditional, clinging to old ideas. And the reason? Catholic leadership--self-appointed, undemocratic--won't budge.
Whether observers find this radical conservatism a good thing varies. Some condemn it; some wistfully wish their own church would be a little less adaptable to the times. For all, the Catholic Church is, for better or worse, a kind of model, a church that will not waver in the prevailing wind.
Because about 25 percent of the U.S. population is Catholic, analysis of today's Catholic Church is hardly a matter of idle curiosity.
The view from inside
But how do outsiders' views compare with the opinions of Catholics themselves? Much of the time, the hierarchy is not seen as traditional and conservative but the opposite. To be sure, the bishops have dug in their
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