The rebel function in Catholicism:
Cuddy, `Edward
discerning authentic from inauthentic attitudes is the and other Catholics, in their relationship with bishops, have "dynamic subordination of action to truth," reflected in...
...became a Catholic," grumbled one priest) locates his theologThe great "Age of Faith" was indeed an age of dissent...
...Henri de Lubac, for for theology and reform movements within Catholicism...
...But in casting out the painfully) new ideas...
...advantages Catholics have...
...In a pluralistic society, a non-pluralistic church terium...
...The volcanic impact of that lives in all adversaries-in and outside the church...
...Conservative prelates might balk at the suggestion, but Theirs is the natural rebellion of the human spirit, unable to church history argues for a broader communication, of the endure the systematic duplicity of Russian life, the physical Catholic right of dissent...
...He the moral dimension of human history: the Berrigan brothers hadn't "thought of that problem," he admitted...
...Greeley might be only half right...
...I broad forces of social and political change, but it is the image agreed, "But it's not that simple," I added...
...But philosophers, in de- Gregory Baum, despite various problems with ecclesiastics fiance of repeated censures, continued their study until the pope, himself, relented and even promoted the study of Aristotle...
...His articles have appeared in basic values against the destructive power of authority...
...Man's sense of solidarity, he warns, pers about their right "to disagree with the papal teaching and must not degenerate into mere conformity...
...Pope Paul's encyclical, may be due less to its rigorous stand on In one of his poems, Karol Wojtyla wrote: "I am a giver, I birth control than to the lack of a well-defined tradition of touch the forces that expand the mind...
...Often enough they have been disparaged as...
...But St...
...The Catholic "advantage" might not be simply the church's clear doctrine, but the framework she provides for A UNITARIAN FRIEND (of all people) recently spoke of the creative dissent...
...It is too easily forgotten that common good...
...Commonweal: 496 Wojtyla's long maturation in the Communist pressure forceful rebuttal that followed, Curran, supported by over 600 cooker has left its mark on his philosophy...
...pacy...
...reform, as from the simple demands of the human psyche...
...rebel," warns psychotherapist, Rollo May, "we cut our own The church's constraints are intolerable for many...
...As pope he will do just dissent among the faithful...
...It must be balanced still be loyal Roman Catholics...
...Unfortunately rebels also have been known to the Catholic church...
...Although he virtually embodies in his own person the criti- But the Pope's forthright rejection of servile compliance procal function of theology vis-a-vis the state, Karol Wojtyla vides broad support for a defense of the critical function of never highlighted the critical function of theology vis-a-vis the theology...
...well-being of a church as well as of a state...
...Louis opposed the papacy for its awkward effort to depose Frederick II...
...Society has gies and a living community to test and assimilate (however repeatedly turned against dissenters...
...Uncritical would be an anachronism...
...The position of the Catholic positive, constructive reinterpretation of traditional forms or church in Poland did not allow him to do so...
...His priestly career began in an illegal, underground taught it all the time...
...There are limits to opposition, as there must be to compliance...
...Pope John Paul Q does not In the West, however, a different situation evokes different expect theologians to be uncritical advocates of the magisdemands...
...Conscience is "the ultimate judge of criticism...
...They Irish-America and Nationalism, 1914-1920 (Arno Press...
...It would cultivate a conviction...
...In the long run however, his course infallible teaching, and justifies dissent only after serious should matter little to our religious allegiance...
...ical bearings in the Catholic tradition: "Perhaps it is because I Down through the centuries, dissenters have enlivened the am a Catholic theologian . . . that I am so conscious of church, broadened her heritage of truth, tempered her errant belonging to a community of faith, of sharing in the intellecways...
...But rebels also need the Under Communism, he has been a resilient and resourceful foe church...
...hostility of the Marxist regime against the church required a Discerning between responsible and irresponsible criticism united resistance on the part of all bishops, priests and theolo- in the church is not easy...
...of the truth they possess...
...These T HE DOCPRINE of responsible dissent, however, had to work concepts were targeted primarily against Nazism and Com- upstream against generations of loose catechetics: the munism...
...authorities over his exuberant rationalism, listing the alleged No one should want to silence his enemies, for that robs him contradictions of the church Fathers in his brash Sic et Non...
...The Roman Catholicism where truth flows from its divine origins, church's medieval ban against interest was obsolete in a world is preserved by the pope and bishops, and is absorbed by an of emergent capitalism...
...Loyal criticism is no vice...
...In the end, honest heresy rather cal authority...
...Gregory Baum has impishly described the process: the church reacts to new ideas "first, by saying 'It is wrong,' ODAY, the papacy itself spotlights the rebel function in then, after some years, by admitting 'It may not be wrong, but T society...
...The tension between dissent and Yet his disturbing methods were shaping the tools of scholasti- authority is crucial to the discovery of truth, even when both cism which became central to Catholic theology...
...With church teachings so Society needs rebels...
...The Cardinal cil...
...Obviously, however, his words have implications the Council for their lack of orthodoxy...
...By the late 12th century, Aristotelian philosophy was seep- For all her flaws, it is in the church, declares theologian ing into the medieval world...
...insights...
...Church authorities are the friction points which homeland, with the Polish millions thundering their support force dissenters toward greater intellectual clarity and inten- and a nervous regime trying to muffle his impact, etched a bold sity...
...poles are tinged with error...
...Catholicism provides a structure to harness creative ener- image'of a rebel leader...
...curbed for the common good...
...14 September 1979:497...
...traitors the authenticity of human attitudes...
...The right of responsible dissent encourages apologia for leaving the church...
...he accused popes and prelates of brigandage in ("We should have thrown more holy water on him when he their treatment of church property in France...
...Loyal opposition can serve the of Cracow...
...Father Charles Curran recalls the that...
...But his book could also be used to bolster adopt the absolutism they once opposed...
...In the Catholicism...
...What if the of the rebel pitted against established power that dramatizes church's demands go against your honest convictions...
...Will he make the connections with Catholicism with exaggerations of church infallibility...
...It would mean, I think, a deeper and psychological strain of living at odds with one's inner intellectual commitment to religious faith...
...precisely those theologians who had cooperated in such Cardinal Wojtyla made no explicit reference to the church in '.model" fashion with bishops at the Council, and who conthis discussion of authentic and inauthentic attitudes within tributed so much to its teaching, often were criticized before community...
...On a variety of issues, theologians loyalty, for him, is no virtue...
...Those were the years of King Louis IX, a veritable monk on the throne, whose personal holiness later won canonization...
...For Karol Wojtyla, Catholicism has been an act of it' is dangerous,' and finally by claiming "The church has rebellion...
...give dramatic point to the integrity of the individual straining 14 September 1979:495 against the leveling tendencies of the culture...
...He is too dialectical a thinker for that...
...And Thomas himself died more in the odor of heresy than sanctity, with several of his positions soon condemned by the archbishops of Paris and Canterbury...
...But this is where I find Him...
...The instance, was among those suspected of unorthodoxy and rights of a ".righteous conscience" are not surrendered with a made to feel the pressure of the Holy Office before the Countheological education, much less with baptism...
...discerning authentic from inauthentic attitudes is the and other Catholics, in their relationship with bishops, have "dynamic subordination of action to truth," reflected in "the found it necessary to assume the thankless function of loyal righteous conscience...
...His own experience may lead him to sympathize than dishonest orthodoxy, became his path to integrity...
...Moreover, responsible dissenculture, as the very roots of civilization...
...No matter reflection and hard reasoning...
...experience familiar to many Catholics: the rising tension over For Pope John Paul H, the rancid taste of Nazi and Comthe years as he tried to twist his mind into religious categories munist tyrannies have quickened his rebel spirit toward politialien to his own experience...
...And the Pope's roots the right of responsible dissent within the church, a concept in an East European Catholicism where religious survival was increasingly prominent in Catholic theology, yet, still an an endless struggle may spell a rigorously conservative paobscure element in the mental landscape of most Catholics...
...What matters is that authority...
...the fudging on past errors...
...But in his clear, cogent style, he capsules an the integrity of the individual and the vitality of the church...
...The question is how: in the style of his namesake, John, alarm he felt on the eve of the impending encyclical-the who moved the church in the spirit of aggiornamento, or in the crises of conscience he anticipated for both priests and laity: style of his namesake, Paul, who sharpened consciousness by "Many people would think that they could no longer be loyal stimulating revolt...
...the excessive emphasis its own pressures toward conformity...
...Their demarcation is rarely neat...
...It is a function which is always preliminary to any church's pastoral...
...The Pope's recent triumphal return to his commitment...
...But gians...
...Historians may prefer to focus on clear," he said, "at least you know where you stand...
...In short, it recognizes the rebel function, basic to both in the church...
...But centuries of exploitative obedient flock...
...demned the teaching of Aristotle...
...Catholics avoid an empty cynicism or defeatism over situaAndrew Greeley tells us that Humanae Vitae, more than tions not to their liking, that rebels and authorities play their anything else, triggered the crisis in contemporary Catholi- roles with zest and dignity, and that we be sensitive to the truth cism...
...by "opposition," by resistance to collective forces which threaten personal responsibility or the common good...
...some allaying of apprehension...
...ters know that truth is complex and that all people, including This concept hardly squares with the traditional picture of their adversaries, hold mixtures of truth and error...
...assaulting the Pentagon, Martin Luther King, Jr., challenging My friend, I later thought, might have been right for the Bull Connor's Birmingham, Thomas More standing firm against Henry VIII, Alexander Solzhenitsyn defying the EDWARD CUDDY, is Chairman of the History & Goverment Depart- Kremlin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer opposing Hitler...
...Yet limits lifeline...
...he rebuffed ecclesiastics for their easy excommunications...
...I was convinced that most Catholics and vigor-while occasionally rereading his own philosophy-he priests did not even know about the right to dissent from could manage well the continuing dialectic in contemporary authoritative noninfallible, hierarchical teachings...
...THE POPE & RESPONSIBLE DISSENT The rebel function in Catholicism EDWARD CUDDY wrong reason...
...conscience akin to that "most secret core and sanctuary" of Comparisons can be odious, but the tensions described by the person as described by Vatican II-one based on intelliShragin vaguely resemble those depicted by the English gence and freedom rather than the compulsions and threats of theologian Charles Davis in A Question of Conscience, his external authority...
...THE CHURCH needs her rebels...
...Even the church's disputed birth A glance at the brilliant culture of the Middle Ages reveals control doctrine, emphasizing discipline and restraint and a that Catholic life, no less than secular society, has been ener- certain "biologism" instead of chemicals and technology, gized by the tensions between dissent and authority...
...with those rebelling against the compulsions and rigidities of Davis articulated a compelling case for his decision to leave Catholicism...
...They American Quarterly, Catholic Historical Review, National Catholic help break the rigid patterns of society, releasing its creative Reporter, The Progressive and other journals, and he is the author of forces and enabling it to adjust to changing conditions...
...leadership...
...In many controversies-the 16th-century ban on inter- tual and spiritual experiences of this community, and of interest, the 17th-century condemnation of Galileo, the more recent preting in my theological work not only what the Gospel disputes over religious liberty and biblical criticism-church means to me personally but also and especially what it means leaders, anchored in a conservative theology, have been pried to the wider community to which I belong and in which I loose from earlier positions by dissenters open to emerging experience significant conflicts...
...Catholics were soon reading in their newspaman's life in community...
...The church, suspicious of the John Milhaven, that he finds Christ: sometimes by accepting, Muslim transmitters and wedded to Platonic traditions, con- sometimes by dissenting...
...The doctrine provides a safety how much society is changed," observes Rollo May, conflict valve for the inner pressures described by Davis, a middle path will continue between the individual and the "conformist between blind conformity and mindless rejection of church levelling tendencies of society...
...Roman Catholics because of their decision to practice artifical Whichever path the Pope takes, if he can sustain his joyful contraception...
...For the rebel function is necessary as the life-blood of are vital to the creative process...
...Few teachers seemed to Boris Shragin contends that Russian dissent in recent years has notice that even with the backing of the Holy Spirit, the pope sprung not so much from the "practical" impulse for political himself does have his off days...
...seminary under German occupation, during which time he strove to rescue Jewish families from Nazi executioners...
...This view, though partially valid, grates not capitalism have deepened our appreciation for the premise on only against modem consciousness but against church history which the ban rested: that man's penchant for profit must be itself...
...Davis exaggerates the unhappiness and ing from various quarters for the discovery and clarification of underestimates the inner peace and meaning many have found truth...
...Her living Christian tradition', nourished by many of government authorities, pressing for a larger religious freeintellectual currents, often provides the vision underlying their dom for his people...
...The doctrine of responsible dissent yields no quarter to moral The immediate future may be exhilarating-or extremely laxity or mental laziness...
...Rebels assert ment of Daemen College in Buffalo...
...The militant formulas, such as he called for...
...For Davis, the church had a broad dialectic in the church conducive to that "open sysbecome a "zone of untruth" led by men more concerned with tem" Karl Rahner writes of, "with diverse factions conversauthority than truth...
...on obedience and intellectual submission to ecclesiastical auIn a study, of Soviet rebels, The Challenge of the Spirit, thority...
...It begins with a strong presumption painful-to those of us who are so moved by the person and in favor of church authority, limits disagreement to non- papacy of John Paul II...
...It is the safeguard of the to the church because of it...
...In his book, The theologians, met both the birth control issue and the right of Acting Person, he stresses freedom and opposition as basic to dissent head on...
...In a non-pluralistic society, a pluralistic church could the mere fact that Cardinal Wojtyla so explicitly affirmed the not possibly survive, let alone lead an effective struggle for necessity of conjoining opposition to solidarity gives cause for human and religious rights...
...By 1965, though, he was invited to write the preface for a recognized not only the possibility but the necessity of loyal new book, Amour et Responsabilite, by Archbishop Wojtyla criticism within a community...
...Aristotelian rebels had laid the foundations for Aquinas whose Summa Theologica became the crown jewel of Catholic thought...
...Here was expresses something that may suddenly be hailed by an the troublesome Abelard, in perennial conflict with church ecology-minded generation...
...criticism impoverishes religious as well as other communities...
...Attempting to stifle Clearly, criticism can be intemperate and unconstructive...
Vol. 106 • September 1979 • No. 16
