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Allowing the scales to drop from our eyes…
Dear Friends,
I must say I am quietly encouraged by the manner in which Archbishop John Bathersby is responding to the situation at St Mary's in South Brisbane (See today's CathNews for the latest developments). It's not the usual response we have come to expect from bishops marching in and throwing their authority all over the place. Where in the dickens did this belief arise in Catholicism that the only truth is dressed in the clothes of political conservatism and social conformism?
As you might remember I am presently slowly making my way through Robert Tilley's book "Benedict XVI and the Search for Truth". Frankly I am finding it enormously frustrating mainly because while I do find many good arguments and insights in sections of what he writes, what overwhelmingly comes across is Tilley's seeming belief that God was some great political conservative and all truth is only to be found in a conservative political outlook. What's wrong with that? Temperamentally I am not a liberal but of conservative disposition myself. But the search for truth is essentially NOT a political endeavour. Politics is essentially not a game about "searching for the truth". It is a game — and an important one — that we use in human society to negotiate compromises between the collectivist and the individualist outlook.
Religion and spirituality is the arena in which we "search for truth" — search for the understanding of what our Creator-God has to say about the direction of history, what we are called to be, and to do — how we are called to think and act collectively and as individuals. It is time for this game of endeavouring to turn our religion and Church into some kind of "political party" — which is what these conservative Christians and Catholics are forever trying to do with their games of "running to Rome" and "running to authority figures" and trying to constantly impose their view of what "truth" is on God — and on the rest of society.
Our lead commentary today by Tom Lee looks at two issues which are particularly important at the moment. One is our changing understanding of the ways in which society, for so long, has cast women into an inferior role. That is an issue that is an "abomination of truth". How in the dickens did the Church ever move away from the original insights of Jesus Christ on such an important question as the role of women in society? The other issue he looks at is the role of bishops in the early Church. We have this model today where our spiritual leaders have come to see themselves as a manifestation of Jesus and of God. That was not their original role. Their original role was one of leading, and representing, their communities. God spoke through the community and the role of bishops and presidents of those communities was to provide leadership in helping society collectively discern what God seemed to be saying through the people. How, we might ask, did thse men come to believe they were given some "direct line to God" and they could usurp the role of the community — and perhaps of God's Godself? What is happening at St Mary's community in South Brisbane might be a heck of a lot more important than your think. Let us collectively pray that the bishops of Brisbane — indeed all the bishops of this nation — might work quietly with the people who have formed this community at St Mary's to find a way forward that retains our sense of communion and community and which, at the same time, moves us away from this track of the constant "politicisation" of our faith and beliefs. <more> |
