'Christ Among Us'

...Another obviously more important one is the di- vinity of Christ, which CUF sees as di- minished by a growing trend in Catholic theology to see the consciousness of Jesus as something which developed throughout his life, or to see his knowl- edge as historically limited and culturally conditioned...

...The question of Jesus' self-consciousness has never been made a matter of dogmatic definition...

...In his tentativeness, Wilhelm is more respectful of mystery than his critics are, but the wisdom of advancing a particular and even partisan theology in a catecheti- cal context can be questioned...

...But the problem with this assump- tion is that it does not recognize a limita- tion on our own perception of what it means to be human...

...Are its discom- forts with the Wilhelm book entirely misplaced...

...The leap from non-personhood to personhood is so vast, metaphysically speak- ing, that it must be marked by some correspondingly dramatic leap in the physical order...

...Precisely where the shifting boundary line lies at the moment between acceptable and unacceptable rational justifications I am not sure...

...Its presentation does, as the CUF folk charge, make the use of contracep- tion look like a Catholic option --which in fact it is, in practice...

...My argument with the CUF critics is that they do not give enough credit to his qualification and moderation, perhaps because they are incapable of noticing them...

...It is and has been an element in Catholic theology for years, and existed even before Vatican II, although it existed in an underground way from the time of the Counter Refor- mation until our own time...

...Does the fact that the author, Anthony Wilhelm, is a former priest have anything to do with Rome's objections to the book...

...Though an elementary blunder, there exists the widespread belief that the wrongness of abortion is not supposed to be a rule discoverable by moral reason but is rather a kind of in-house morality peculiar to religious communities, e.g., Catholic~, Southern Baptists, Orthodox Jews --akin to the Moslem prohibition on eating pork...

...CUF would no doubt be as horrified by the medieval debates about the Immaculate Concep- tion (Thomas Aquinas argued against it, with all other good Dominicans...

...Abortion on demand is the great scandal, the colossal national disgrace --that no society can live with which has not abdi- cated either its decency or its moral intelligence...

...And if it is not unorthodox, is it the best catechetical approach to Chris- tian doctrine...

...RADICAL SUBJECTWICATION OF GOD'S MORAL LAW...

...in this vein Geraldine Ferraro's defense of her pro-choice position --a defense that would be merely silly if the morality of abortion is something that can be...

...TRANSUBSTANTIATION IGNORED AND UNDERMINED...

...To take an issue which has by now bored all of us to tears, Christ Among Us treats contraception in a way which no doubt echoes the majority opin- ion of married couples and even the opin- ion of many bishops, but not that of Rome...

...In the case of his view of contraception and other traditional Catholic teachings regarding sexuality, including premarital sex, Wilhelm does indeed present the consen- sus of a number of respectable theolo- gians, and he does indeed depart from what has been presented over the years as Catholic teaching...

...9 Remember that abortion on demand is the real political issue...

...That is a paragraph which begins by saying...

...Is collegiality dead...

...Just as it is t of bounds to justify public policies with arguments drawn from revelation, so it is out of bounds to justify them with rational arguments that are so abstruse or so problematical that they cannot hope to command even the grudging assent of public opinion...

...The argument in favor of .9 .9 .9 the language of transubstantmt~o/[ ig- nores the important questions which theologians, and not only liberal ones, have raised about the way in which this language canonizes an Afistotelian view of matter which has nothing to do with Christian revelation -- that is, it assumes the reality of the division between acci- dent and substance...

...Church politics interest me about as much as cricket does, and I leave the sorting out of all these things to people who care about them...

...Through- out history some of the particular deci- sions of Rome, ahd for that matter of ecumenical councils, have later been recognized as wrong --I have cited in another context the example of the Coun- cil of Florence, which declared with all the solemnity required for infallibility, as defined by the First Vatican Council, the very teaching for which Father Feeney was excommunicated, namely the belief that all who are not in visible communion with the Roman Catholic church (the Or- thodox and the Jews were cited specifi- cally) are certainly damned...

...I concede that this does not logically follow, but it does follow for all practical purposes...

...Didn't Rome abuse its author- ity (or at the very least behave rudely) when it made its decision about the book without consulting any American bishop...

...It would have to prohibit not simply abortion on demand but abortion in all cases, even the hardest of the hard cases...

...It would have to forbid all birth control devices which function not by prevent- ing conception but by preventing the fertilized ovum from implanting on the wall of the uterus...

...It is contended with a. good deal of plausibility that the personhood of the fetus from the moment of conception is a reality accessible to reason, not a pure datum of faith...

...Catholics United for the Faith accepts everything which comes from Rome un- critically, which puts it to the fight of many conservative theologians who are willing to grant that the particular deci- sions of particular Roman offices really don't carry the same weight as the deci- sions of ecumenical councils...

...nonetheless, they spell out the CUF concerns.9 DO ANGELS REALLY EXIST...

...But my argument with Wilhelm would be that here and elsewhere he gives too much to the Zeitgeist, offering relatively recent in- terpretations as probable, and it could be argued that this is not really the job of a catechism but appropriate rather in speculative theology...

...Once it is granted that abortion ought to be debated as a matter of common moral reason, not as a matter of super- natural revelation, it follows that the real political issue is not whether abortion should be allowed in "hard cases" (rape, incest, the life and safety of the mother, etc...

...I am afraid that there are meet- ings which go the other way, and reveal depths of evil and self-deception which force a redefinition at another end of the spectrum...

...this is a discussion the morally and philosophically sensitive citizen will want to continue...

...HERETICAL CHRISTOLOGY...

...What if the human- ity of Jesus is of such a depth that our own ideas of humanity are lost in it...

...Then too, there is a sense in which Jesus developed in the knowledge of himself and his mission...

...But there are aspects of the presenta- tion of Catholic faith in Christ Among Us which definitely move away from what has ordinarily been called Catholic or-thodoxy...

...Do the con- servatives have a case...

...Is the book unor- thodox in its presentation of Catholic Christianity...

...There has never been an un-messy church...

...Abortion in hard cases, especially when performed early in the pregnancy, we'll just have to live with as best we can...

...Then the idea that Jesus' human consciousness might be radically different from my own made me believe that, if it were, he could be of no help to me, since our experi- ences would be radically different, so incongruent that one experience could not really touch, and therefore heal, the other...

...The im- portant thing, obviously, is to assert the mystery: he was fully divine, and fully human, and calls us to share in that life...

...But it is one thing to say that Rome teaches one thing about contraception and that many Catholics disagree --a point on which no one would offer much of an argument --and another to say this in a book which is allegedly a presentation of the Catholic faith as defined by Rome...

...In face of such an assumption the anti-abortion liberal must never tire of repeating what seems so obvious: that as a citizen objection to abortion is based on reason, not on faith or church discipline...

...this is a weightier question than you could guess from the way Wilhelm hurries by it...

...He 'increased in wisdom, and in stature and in favor with God and marl.' (Luke 2:, 52...

...JOHN GARVEY 21 September 1984:489...

...The Eastern churches have never taken up the language of transubstantiation, but Rome has always considered not only their Eucharist valid, but their theology of the Eucharist orthodox...

...What he always was and what he basically knew in the depths of his consciousness, that he was divine, he only gradually came to grasp in the context of his life situation...

...That is, he is not in- clined to take the dire approach which regarded most activity in this area as au- tomatically mortally sinful...

...After all, what moment is more likely to mark the inception of personhodd...

...the Franciscans were for it) as they are by some of the current controversies...

...But this is also a case which in 1984 and for the indefinite future will surely be more successful in a ilOsophical seminar than in the political arena...

...SANCTIONS CONTRACEPTION...

...This issue is not as easy as I thought when I was a college sophomore...

...What should an adult catechism be like...

...but whether it should be allowed "on demand" --that is, for any reason, no matter how trivial, and at any time, no matter how late in the pregnancy...

...he presents the traditional teaching, and immediately after points to possible exceptions to a strict reading of that teaching...

...As helpful as that distinction may have been in some argu- ments, the point which must be made in talking about the Eucharist is surely that the change which occurs is real, and that what the believer receives is truly and completely the presence of Christ...

...My point is not that Rome is ordinarily so wrong, only that the mere fact that Rome has said something is not a sufficient guarantee of its Christian or-thodoxy...

...u So a good rational case can be made that a human person is present from the moment of conception...

...declaring that the book could no sion of Rome to forbid the use of the book These questions are good ones, but longer be used as a catechetical introduc- primarily the result of lobbying by one there are other important questions which 21 September 1984:487 have been overlooked in the excitement...

...What I do want to look at is the source of the controversy itself --the book and the charges brought against it by the conservative critics who have been unhappy with the fact that it is America's most widely used catechism for the in- struction of adult converts...

...It is not as unor-thodox an opinion as Wilhelm's critics suppose...

...Likoudis finds Christ Among Us wanting in its treatment of an array of topics which are apparently touchstones of orthodoxy for members of Catholics United for the Faith...

...To take Luke's reference to Jesus' increase in wisdom and grace, and to say that "he only gradually came to grasp" what he was "in the context of his life situation" is not only to pour a little more jargon than we need into a complicated question (does it make sense to speak of knowing something "basically, in the depths of consciousness" and at the same time not really knowing it...

...It is important, I think, that Wilhelm prefaces this with "perhaps," and also that he precedes it with a paragraph which is either uninteresting to, or delib- erately ignored by, his critics...

...This is an extraordinarily difficult thing for us who are only human to understand --and ultimately it is a mystery -- how a human intellect could grasp the fact that one is a divine person...

...And there is, of course, more...

...Contraception is only one of the issues here...

...The Likoudis review is interspersed with a number of headings which are probably those of the editor, not Likoudis...

...But gradualism is the mark of every moment of embryonic development except the first, the moI II I II Of several minds: John Garvey I 'CHRIST AMONG US' A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CRITICISMS ment of conception...

...The language of "fundamental option" always seemed to me to be more suited to stock traders than to moral theologians, but the point the defenders of the idea, such as it is, have tried to make is one which should hardly be put in the category of denying the Resurrection or the presence of Christ in the Eucharist...

...I am prepared to grant that Rome be- haved badly towards the book and its publisher, Paulist Press...

...What it seemed like to Jesus is absolutely beyond our knowing...

...What more probable moment, then, for the commencement of personhood...

...it is also to assume the correctness of a recent theological opinion...

...The full humanity to which the Incarnation calls us is something, which is capable of shar- ing the divinity of Christ...

...Can it never be ambivalent...

...WAS MARY REALLY A VIRGIN...

...This is typical of Wilhelm's proce-dure...

...This very acknowledgment of ambivalence is no doubt one of the irritants which has exer- cised the CUF people...

...FUNDAMENTAL OPTION ENTRENCHED...

...For those lucky enough to have missed this discussion of "fun- damental option," the idea is that the notion of mortal sin should not be at- tached so much to particular acts as to the basic choice of one's own interests over the will of God, the deliberate orientation towards oneself rather than towards God and neighbor...

...The author of the review, CUF Vice President James Likoudis, calls the book a "poisonous fountain of neo-Modernist errors" in the first paragraph, and this is before he has even warmed up...

...Hence the premise from which these hypothetical policies and metaphysical conun- drums are derived --namely, that personhood begins at con- ception --is likewise politically unrealistic, no matter how meritorious it may be from a logical or metaphysical point of view...

...ORIGINAL SIN RADICALLY DISTORTED...

...David R. Carlin, Jr., is a senator in the Rhode Island state legislature...

...It is at this moment that our genetic identity is fixed, that our histories begin...

...How should it regard tradition and orthodoxy...

...Is it right for the Vatican to suppress a book withB Y ORDERING the imprimatur re-tion for adults, the Vatican raised a out saying what it finds objectionable in moved from Christ Among Us and number of good questions: Was the deci- it, as was done with Christ Among Us...

...It also seems to me to go against the facts of our own experi- ence: I have met some pdople whose pro- found goodness and wisdom made me redefine what I thought was humanly possible...

...Christ Among Us moves fight down the middle of this line of current theological opinion, offering "on the one hand, on the other hand" Commonweal: 488 approaches to major issues...

...decided by moral reason --makes perfectly good sense: While she personally, as a result of her religious beliefs, disapproves of abortion, she doesn't feel entitled to force those beliefs on others...

...DISTORTS CARDINAL NEWMAN'S VIEWS...

...Warming up doesn't take him long, however...

...Some of the questions here are, plainly, objectively more important than others...

...The case Catholics United for the Faith made against Christ Among Us was summed up in a review which appeared in the right-wing Catholic newspaper The Wanderer in 1982...

...Once this is assumed, it seems plainly absurd for Catholics and others to attempt to "impose" the special rules of their faith on the public at large...

...It matters more if someone's Christology is heretical than if Cardinal Newman's views are distorted...

...Perhaps the most important question is this: what criteria should be used to determine orthodoxy...

...Anthony Wilhelm does present a fair picture of the sorts of things a lot of people studying theology these days are likely to encounter...

...I would like to explore those questions further in another column...

...It was for awhile a Roman teaching that Jews should wear a distinct form of clothing, and this was taken up later by Hitler's advisors...

...Is the book in fact unor-thodox...

...In any case, the objection of CUF is that Wilhelm i's able to say, "Perhaps as we know that we are fully spiritual beings, that we have a soul, but cannot fully conceive of or reflect on this aspect of ourselves, and as we only gradually come to realize through the ex- perience of living what it means to be a human person --so Jesus only gradually became reflexively conscious of his di- vine personality, gradually came to know himself more and more deeply...

...It seems both unimaginative and irreverent to assume that we know the fullness of what it means to be human...

...Nor is that all: how do adherents of full-personhood-at-conception regard the vast number of spontaneous abortions and spontaneous failures of implantation in the uterine wall...

...Consider for a moment to what policies such a premise would commit the public...

...DAVID R. CARLIN, JR...

...But at present and for the remotely foreseeable future, at least in the United States, the argument that personhood begins at conception plainly will not do as a premise for public policy...

...conservative group, Catholics United for the Faith...

...T HE POSITION of Catholics United for the Faith is one thing...