HOW FREE IS FREE?
Wicker, Brian
FROM BRITAIN HOW FREE MS FREE? Two recent pieces of news in the Catholic world of Great Britain bring out some of the ironies present in the ecclesiastical situation today. The first is the...
...Now Father Baker is not alone...
...My guess is that the majority of Labor voters in the constituency are Prentice-supporters: but a large majority of party members are against him...
...In the church, as elsewhere, "determined bands of extremists" have been mostly considered as confined to the "left": now we have them from the "right...
...His conscience therefore tells him that he must, as a priest, continue to celebrate mass in his parish in the old form...
...Now I'm not saying that there is actually a logical contradiction between these two examples of public attitudes by the church...
...There is little evidence here of the recognition of the value of pluralism...
...For curious reasons of his own, into which I do not propose to enter, he has come to the conclusion that the new mass rite, whether in English or Latin, is heretical...
...The nub of the issue is that, however crazy his theology, Father Baker is taking a stand on a matter of conscience, and the church authorities are disallowing this on the grounds of the need for uniformity and obedience to a universally binding decree...
...But I doubt if many local Labor voters recognized that this example of political hooliganism was ultimately caused by their own refusal to take a full part in the activities of the very party they Support...
...What goes for the world at large, apparently, does not go for the church...
...Father Baker is a "traditionalist...
...This is the view of the Tablet-certainly the most intelligent of the Catholic weekly periodicals here...
...It insists that in a pluralist society "the free flow of ideas (is) best encouraged if there is a common forum in which all voices can be heard," and for this reason it comes down heavily in favor of the principle of "public service broadcasting...
...I read in today's Guardian of "an itinerant band of six Roman Catholic priests" who are "touring the country blatantly celebrating the forbidden 400-year old Tridentine mass in defiance of the Catholic bishops": and this group has connections, of course, with the seminary at Econe, in Switzerland, which has become something of a center of right-wing conscientious objection to Vatican II and almost all its works...
...So also, presumably, has been the promise that Father Baker must have given at his ordination to obey orders...
...What concerns me is that here we have an example of the rights of conscience (well informed or not-it hardly matters) coming into direct conflict with the demands of a legal discipline...
...But it is further the case that very few voters, however committed, actually bother to take out party membership...
...In this respect his own bishop is no more than a man apparently, and the latter's request that he step into line, and cease disobeying orders, has been ignored...
...it is also much more liberal and outward looking...
...The situation is perhaps not unlike another case which has flared up recently...
...He must obey God rather than man...
...Now it is usually the case that local party activists, whether Labor or Conservative, are more "extreme" in their views (more "purist" one might say, i.e., more concerned with preserving the purity of party doctrine and policy) than are the politicians in Parliament: for the latter are continually subjected to the necessities of compromise, of bargaining and negotiating and balancing pros and cons...
...The rights of conscience, best served by a readiness to allow all points of view to be heard, are freely admitted in the public sphere, but seem to be denied when it comes to an eccentric minority within the church itself...
...The first is the confrontation between the parish priest of a small country parish in Norfolk, at a village called Downham Market, and his bishop over the question of retaining the Tri-dentine Latin mass...
...Of course, one ought to try to take account of the fact that many of Father Baker's own parishioners want to attend mass in the new form and are being denied this right But 90 doubt, in a more sensible world their interests could be taken care of without too much difficulty...
...On the contrary, Father Baker's conscience has to take second place to the commands of a centralized authority, on a matter which after all is not, according to the authorities themselves, a matter of crucial theological concern...
...And such a situation only helps to make possible disgusting exhibitions like the one which occurred in Mr...
...No bishop is saying that the Tridentine mass is heretical: only that the church has spoken against its continuance and everyone must now step into line...
...But the point is that Father Baker maintains that his decision is a matter of conscience...
...BRIAN WICKER (Brian Wicker is Commonweal's regular correspond' ent in Great Britain...
...The irony is that when we come to look at the evidence prepared, in another part of the ecclesiastical forest, for the commission on broadcasting, one of the points most clearly insisted upon is the need to recognize pluralism in our society...
...But it does mean that there is a dangerous gap between what the party activists want and what the local Labor voters want: and until that gap is filled, one way or another, there will continue to be Prentice-like problems wherever the local MP happens to be on the side of the voters rather than on the side of his local party committee...
...How anybody, of any sort, can bind the future in this way I personally fail to understand...
...I am merely pointing out a certain ironic inconsistency of tone and approach...
...Conscientious objection is not to be permitted in this sphere...
...The result is that, in many a constituency, a small group of committed party members can determine the complexion of the local executive committee quite legally, yet without much sensitivity to the views of those who vote for their party at election time...
...The second is the publication of the official Catholic Church evidence to the sitting commission on the future of broadcasting in Britain...
...The Catholic evidence in this regard is not only much more professionally thought out than that of the established church (which has produced a very fuddy-duddy report...
...One of the reasons he gives, apparently, is that the Council of Trent specifically insisted that its own rite should prevail throughout the church for all time, and that therefore any attempt to replace it is a contravention of a conciliar decree...
...Such a view may be perfectly correct: but it points to yet another irony...
...In the Labor Party, this means in practice being adopted by the local executive committee in that area: and this committee is elected by the paid-up party members...
...To become an MP, it is usually necessary to be "adopted" by your party in the constituency where you are standing...
...Or is it merely long awaited and expected inevitability...
...n Great Britain...
...There is nothing "undemocratic" in this, except that any widespread apathy is undemocratic...
...Of course, one easy way out of the impasse is to blame everything on "a determined band of extremists . . . deliberately producing a confrontation...
...Prentice's constituency a few weeks ago, when a meeting was disrupted by a mixture of hecklers from the "left" and flour-bag throwers from the "right," to such an extent that rational argument became virtually impossible...
...that of the position within his own party of the Minister for Overseas Development, Reg Prentice...
...This is the nub of the Reg Prentice problem...
...I think that this fact points to a continuing need for serious reflection on the whole question of dogmatic truth and its relation to the diversity of 'schools,' which alone can guarantee a creative and living theology in the church...
...Perhaps a little explanation of his problem may be in order...
...But I'm not much concerned with that aspect of the affair...
...after all, these are the inescapable concomitants of the exercise of power...
Vol. 103 • March 1976 • No. 7
