Credo Ut Intellegam has been suffering through the news from the German Church, and I feel largely the way he does:
Wenn mir etwas Angst macht, dann ist es die Naivität, mit der momentan die üblichen Patentrezepte als Allheilmittel ins Spiel gebracht werden: vox temporis – vox Dei, verheirateter Weltklerus, Laienmitsprache und -mitverantwortung, innerkirchliche Frauenförderung etc. Ich habe inzwischen einiges an Laiengremien gesehen, von innen und von außen, ich kenne meine Mitchristen recht gut und fürchte, sie sind genauso unheilig wie ich. Sie sind genauso egoistisch, rechthaberisch, feige, heuchlerisch, geistig rigide und glaubensmäßig frigide wie ich und wie viele der aktuellen geweihten “Machthaber”. Woher der Optimismus, Hochwürdigster Herr Erzbischof, Ihr Damen und Herren der Räte und Komitees? Ich fürchte, ich kann da nicht folgen.
(snip)
Meine Hoffnung setze ich nicht mehr auf die Strukturen, die “Verfestigungen und Verkrustungen” von heute (Schick) noch auf die Strukturen von morgen, gleich wie liquide und flexibel sie sein mögen. Meine Hoffnung ist Jesus Christus; meine Hoffnung sind die Gottesmutter und die unabsehbare Schar der Heiligen, in denen die Liebe GOttes aufscheint; meine Hoffnung ist die erbarmende Gnade, wie sie mir Unwürdigem im Wort des Wortes, in den Sakramenten entgegentritt, und zwar egal, wie unwürdig der Mund und die Hände des Spenders sind.
If anything causes me anxiety, then it is naïveté that comes into play with the current patent medicines as cure-alls: vox temporis – vox Dei, married secular clergy, lay dialogue and co-responsibility, promotion of women within the church, etc. I have in the meantime seen some on committees, seen, from within and from without — I know my fellow Christians all too well and fear that they are just as unholy as I am. They are just as egoistic, bossy, lazy, hypocritical, spiritually rigid and coldly mediocre in faith as I am and many of the current ordained Powers-That-Be are. Whence the optimism, Most Honorable Archbishop, ladies and gentlemen of counsels and committees? I am afraid that I can’t follow you there.
I do not put my hope in structures, neither in the “bastions and fossilized structures” of today nor in the structures of tomorrow, no matter how fluid and flexible they might be. My hope is Jesus Christ, my hope is the Mother of God and the incalculable crowd of saints, through whom the love of God shines. My hope is in merciful grace, which encounters me, all unworthy, in the word of the Word, in the sacraments, and no matter how unworthy the mouth and the hand of the ministers be.
On the general principle that Malt does more than Milton can, I also recommend his blog “A Song for the Day of German Beer.”
Thanks for the link to this great song “You Can Drink Beer And Also Love Jesus”. As a Canadian of Dutch and Irish heritage, I certainly appreciate what a gift a good cold one is!
Leon, thanks for the mention and the recommendation. I was very impressed by your 1st book when I read it some years ago.
Just one proposal for the translation which is otherwise very good: The unabsehbar that goes eith the crowd of saints means something like incalculable, not invisible.
Scipio,
Thanks for the correction. My German is not bad, but it wobbles every now and then.
What do you think of Mixa? Is Der Spiegel trying to discredit him even further with unsported innuendos of homosexuality?
The last time I saw him was on Corpus Christi, as he carried the Sacrament through the streets of Eichstaett.
Lee
Lee,
Actually, I have never seen or met him in person and cannot remember to have heard him on TV (I don’t watch a lot).
For sure, we was prominent, outspoken, provocative, a conservative populist. And as such always the ideal target for the most secularist German mainstream media. I am not sure how he was perceived as a bishop by his diocesis. Now, some say, the diocesis was divided, and it is time to heal.
I don’t know more than we can read in the press. Personally, I am prepared to hear at some point, that there is something to Mixa’s homosexual disposition and homosexual behavior – though it it difficult to say at this point to which degree. I do not think that any decent Bishop should go to sauna with his seminarians.
Certainly, the Spiegel tries to discredit him, but if all or some of what is suggested is true: What can we say? There seem to have been rumors of bad behavior on Bishop Mixa’s part as Cardinal Lehmann mentioned today in an interview. He found them at that time insultory and vilifying, so he did not bring them up at the time of Mixa’s appointment to the Augsburg see, which is fair enough. But that also means that nobody had the courage to ever mention it at a good place or that nobody in the Church listened to it.
There have been stats supposing that it is less likely that kids are abused by priests or church personnel than within their family. Seems there are around 15,000 cases of child abuse per year in Germany. But this must not be an excuse to be silent or to play it down.
Credo ut Intelligam’s final sentence, while an excellent statement of faith, is the same kind of cop-out in which traditional Catholics indulge. Why? Because Catholics refuse to recognize that no effective structures for the redress of legitimate grievances exist in the Church, and that Canon Law cannot be enforced w/o those structures. I’m not speaking as somebody who believes in committees and people for their own sakes. I speak as an American who has seen how such structures have made my country’s leaders accountable despite their flaws. The Founding Fathers designed those structures *specifically* to counter-act human nature. Sadly, medieval thinking so pervades the Church that it is well-nigh incapable of incorporating such structures.
“I speak as an American who has seen how such structures have made my country’s leaders accountable despite their flaws”
Joseph, I’ll believe this when the last presidential administration of this country will be brought to task for authorizing physical abuse of detainees labelled as enemy combatants. The structures that should have held the country’s leaders in check, namely Congress and the courts, have not only failed to do so but in many cases aided and abetted immoral activity. Adopting structures from the state will not necessarily “counteract human nature.”
Mere Catholic, you site *one* “example” of supposedly failed oversight. Let me rebut your “example” with these questions:
When was the last time a military coup took over the United States, such as has been common in South America, for example?
When was the last time a totalitarian ruler took over the United States, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.?
I don’t argue that the structures in American government have prevented abuse or corruption. I *do* argue, however, that they have preserved the fundamental safeguards of individual freedom that the Founders revered — and, frankly, that the Church doesn’t.
As far as “enemy combatants” are concerned, Mere Catholic, I suggest you do some research on German saboteurs who were caught and convicted trying to destroy waterfront property on the Atlantic during WWII. I also suggest that you inquire as to the nationalities of the “enemy combatants” you site. I doubt they are American citizens under constitutional protection.
Joseph, I’m not sure why you felt the need for a rebuttal. Trust me, I’m on “your side” when it comes to better enforcement of canon law within the Church. I do, however, am of the mindset, as Scipio seems to be, that without the glue of true virtue, no structure will hold together for long, either within or outside the Church.
As to your suggestions of better research and inquiry, thank you. One can never be a good enough student of history. So yes, while no “totalitarian ruler” has ever taken over the U.S. government, its leaders have certainly not refrained from acting in totalitarian ways. One egregious example in my mind is the forced roundup and detention of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II for no other reason than their heritage. As for your grievance against my “site [sic]”, I assume you are at least somewhat troubled by the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? This is a partial list (sourced from the Int’l Red Cross, the ACLU) of what has taken place at GB: indefinite detentions without charges or trials, sleep deprivation and water boarding to exact “confessions”, and forced feeding during hunger strikes. They may not be US citizens but the US is a signatory to the Geneva Convention Treaty which affords basic human rights protection to prisoners of war. Then, there is the current case of Anwar Al Awlaki, the U.S. citizen now based in Yemen, for whom President Obama has authorized a CIA-led assassination without charges and without trial. But never mind any of this. Now that I think of it, Holy Mother Church is supposed to be better than, not similar to, any country so how good or bad this country may be at times is a moot point to me when it concerns the conduct of the Church.
@Joseph: I speak as a German who knows his fellow-Germans or fellow-German Catholics who are currently not thinking about structures to counteract human nature but about measures promising a Brave New Church where neither child abuse nor abuse of power, neither coercion nor dogma will ever reign again. Let priests marry, ordain women, make lay(wo)men decide – and it will finally come down to earth: the Una Sancta Utopia.
(I admit though, that you’ve got a point about the blind spot of traditional Catholics, including myself. Just not this time.)
Mere Catholic, we can argue about particulars but that would miss the point. The point isn’t to transfer lock, stock and barrel American structures to hold authorities accountable; those structures reflect American history would only work in an American context. The point is to develop a system in the Church that redresses legitimate grievances, checks and balances the interests of various parties (laity, clergy, hierarchy) and reflects Catholic principles. Of course, no structures can be perfect and you’re right about virtue being more important than structures *per se.* The fundamental issue is the rule of law, not the rule of individuals or groups. Sadly, the Church has been so focused on protecting its own political perogatives and prestige for so long that it has abandoned any notion of the “rule of law” ruling in the Church.
scipio, I don’t doubt for one second that the Germans you know would use the crisis to form the Una Sancta Utopia, as you put it so well. The problem is getting away from trying to build Utopias (which never work, just look at the Communists and Nazis) and concentrating on protecting the innocent and preserving God-given individual rights. The Church has an extensive collection of writings on these subject (not the least of which is Scripture itself). Perhaps it’s time for the Church’s serious minds to address these problems.