Punishing dessent
Coriden, James A.
In particular, I see three impacts of a coercive atmosphere on the teaching office of the church. _9 The Weakening of the Episcopal Magisterium. Here we should recall the theological force of...
...One of the high points was a concelebrated Mass in the cathedral on the feast of Saint Wenceslaus, the patron of Bohemia...
...When this happens, the presumption of truth in papal teaching is weakened, because such a presumption assumes that the ordinary sources of human understanding have been consulted...
...The CDF offered a short list of examples of those noninfallible truths which are so connected to divine revelation, either historically or logically, that they must be given firm and definitive assent by all of the faithful: the infallibility and primacy of jurisdiction of the pope before they were defined at the First Vatican Council, the reservation of priestly ordination to men, the illicitness of euthanasia, the illicitness of prostitution and fornication, the legitimacy of the election of the pope or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonization of saints, the declaration of the invalidity of Anglican ordinations...
...As noted, that was then...
...But does it follow that there is no room for creativity save on Tiber's shore...
...During the years of persecution, the archbishop had offered his people an impressive witness of integrity and commitment...
...This is, of course, true, even though it's a clich6...
...The letter inserted into the canons a category of "definitively proposed" teachings about faith or morals which must be "accepted and held," and a provision to permit the punishment of anyone who "pertinaciously rejects" such teachings and fails to make a retraction after being admonished to do so...
...It weakens the very vehicle (papal magisterium) that proposes to be the agent of strength and certainty...
...If bishops are not speaking their true sentiments, then clearly the pope is not able to draw on the wisdom and reflection of the bishops in the exercise of his ordinary magisterium...
...This further erodes both the episcopal and papal magisterium by silencing yet another source of understanding and growth...
...9 The Marginalization of Theologians...
...Commonweal | 3 August 14, 1998 _9 The pope approved on September 19, 1989, the new formula for the profession of faith which the CDF had already made public on January 9 of that year...
...That is why what is called the "enforcement of doctrine" is literally counterproductive...
...Now is now...
...The bishops didn't study the pros and cons...
...The archbishop embodied a personal authority that went beyond the ecclesial office he held...
...If the bishops around the world are united with the pope in their teaching, then that teaching can achieve a greater level of stability and certainty, and indeed achieve infallible status if the teaching is a proper object of infallibility and is presented as something to be held definitively...
...The bishops should be the first ones to protest this diminishment of their magisterium, and the atmosphere that grounds it...
...9 The Weakening of the Papal Magisterium...
...Here we would recall one of the arguments made during the deliberations of the so-called Birth Control Commission in the 1960s...
...Coercive measures will almost certainly have the effect of quieting theologians, at least on certain issues...
...Third, what is the content of this category of doctrines which are now canonically enforced...
...And that further question might be the beginning of a fruitful conversation, not the end of all discussion...
...When the genuiness and clarity of episcopal agreement have been cast into grave doubt by a coercive atmosphere, the episcopal magisterium itself has been undermined...
...9 The pope, on May 30, 1997, specifically granted to the CDF an exception to the canons which permits the Congregation to declare the excommunication of someone it judges to be guilty of heresy, based on its own internal regulations, without giving that person the benefit of the ordinary canonical penal procedures, for example, access to evidence and representation by counsel...
...Then, in a striking insight, Benedict continues: Let the abbot pay particular heed to the views of the young, for it is often the way of the Holy Spirit to speak through the young (see, Rule of Saint Benedict, ch...
...Now, one certainly gives grateful assent to the distinctive Catholic belief in the special ministry of the See of Peter...
...ope John Paul II signed an apostolic letter on May 18, 1998, titled Ad tuendam fidem, "To Defend the Faith...
...He is not deemed unicus legislator for the whole church in the canons, but that is the way he is free to act...
...Second, Pope John Paul II, despite his philosophical background and his writing on the "splendor of truth," has already left a legacy of these attempts to enforce an expanded scope of faith-related teachings by juridical means: _9 He added a punitive provision to the 1983 Code so that those who disagreed with even nondefinitive teachings could be penalized...
...I, for one, would tend to the view of Alasdair Macintyre in After Virtue that our great spiritual need is, rather, for a new, doubtless different, Benedict...
...The terse letter, which was given motu proprio (on his own initiative), made two minor changes in the church's two governing books of canons, the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin church and the 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches...
...Initiating a penal trial after the Congregation had reached its conclusions was seen to be "pure and unjustified juridical formalism...
...One would think that the determination of spiritual truth requires a profoundly spiritual discernment...
...Now, as the century nears its end, a series of edicts from Rome seems to many to stress once again, in almost exclusive fashion, the institutional and juridical element...
...This follows from the first point...
...The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) articulated this category of doctrines in 1989 as a part of a new formula for the profession of faith which some categories of officials, for example, cardinals, bishops, pastors, deacons, and seminary professors, are canonically required to make when first assuming office...
...In a coercive atmosphere both the genuiness and clarity are put in serious doubt...
...At the beginning of our troubled century, the Catholic theologian and spiritual guide, Baron Friedrich von Hfigel, reflected upon the Petrine, Pauline, and Johannine hmctions within the church, associating them, respectively, with its institutional, intellectual, and mystical elements...
...As for clarity, the more likely scenario in a coercive atmosphere is that the bishops (some at least) will say nothing if they disagree...
...ROBERT P. IMBELLI is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and teaches theology at Boston College...
...These doctrines are not those revealed by God and taught by the church as revealed, but are those which the church's teaching authority considers to be connected to God's revealed truths so closely that they are required in order to safeguard or expound those revealed truths...
...In a coercive atmosphere people will repeat things because they are told to and threatened with punishment if they say anything else...
...It was with some disappointment, then, that I read the remarks attributed to the now Cardinal Vlk, during the presentation to the press of Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter Apostolos suos ("The Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences...
...And one acknowledges, among other debts, the providential role Rome played in preventing the Eastern European Communist dictatorships from fracturing the unity of the church into so many state-controlled organizations...
...It was contended that the church could not modify its teaching on birth regulation because that teaching had been proposed unanimously as certain by the bishops around the world with the pope over a long period of time...
...And, though that is not necessarily equatable with a majority vote, it would seem to require the widest possible consultation among the spiritually experienced and mature...
...As reported in the New York Times, Cardinal Vlk, referring to Rome, insisted: "Creativity can be found here--this is the place for creativity...
...Indeed, such consultation of the faithful seems a moral imperative...
...The precise punishment is not specified, but excommunication is not excluded...
...In such circumstances, to read episcopal silence as unanimity is self-deceptive...
...To this point Cardinal Leo-Joseph Suenens of Belgium replied: "We have heard arguments based on 'what the bishops all taught for decades.' Well, the bishops did defend the classical position...
...Even though this category of teachings has been included in the official profession of faith since 1989, it had not been included in the church's canons, and, more importantly, the rejection of these teachings was not a punishable offense until now...
...In the rule, the abbot is instructed that before making a decision that will affect all in the monastery, he is to convene the monks and ask their advice...
...He had been prevented from exercising his ministry during the Communist regime and had worked for many years as a window washer...
...n the fall of 1993, I made a memorable first trip I to Prague...
...The main presider and preacher was Archbishop Miloslav Vlk of Prague...
...At another time a list of the same category of teachings might have included: the existence of limbo, the permissibility of slavery, the illicitness of lending money at interest, the episcopacy as a dignity but not a part of the sacrament of orders, the coercion of religious observance by the state...
...It was one of changes the pope made in the canons after they were turned over to him in 1982...
...First, nowhere is the raw monarchical authority of the modern papacy more clearly revealed than in this sort of legislative action...
...Here we should recall the theological force of episcopal agreement described in Lumen gentium, no...
...In the opening sentence the pope states that it is "to defend the faith of the Catholic church against errors arising from some of the Christian faithful, especially those engaged in the study of theological disciplines...
...As he stood in the cathedral on that late September day, preaching with crozier in hand, I imagined I saw a squeegee attached to the end of the crook, an image that only enhanced his authority...
...Commonweal | 4 August 14, 1998...
...Perhaps the spirituality of Saint Benedict can offer guidance...
...If reputable theologians are marginalized, the magisterium is proportionately weakened...
...But is was imposed on them by authority...
...Or that the Creator Spirit only blows south of the Alps...
...but it does not answer the further question: "How, then, is truth determined...
...Whether, in God's Providence, this is what the coming third millennium requires should be a matter of prayerful discernment on the part of "liberals" and "conservatives" alike...
...The pope, with a stroke of his pen, can and did change the law for the entire Roman Catholic church, without a gesture toward collegiality or an attempt at consultation...
...Three things are especially worthy of note about this little letter: (1) the exercise of rule-making authority, (2) the canonical enforcement of faith, and (3) the content of this category of teaching...
...But the unity must be genuine and clear...
...In the same press conference, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who seems to be working overtime this summer) is quoted as saying: "Truth is not determined by a majority vote...
...This is the formula which he added to the canons and reinforced with a penalty by this recent letter...
...This provision had no parallel in the 1917 Code, nor was it recommended by those who worked on the code's revision for fifteen years...
...JAMES A. CORIDEN is a priest of the Diocese of Gary and professor of church law at Washington Theological Union...
...They received directives, they bowed to them, and they tried to explain them to their congregations...
...No one needs to ask for whom this letter was intended...
...He insisted that all three were indispensable, but that they had to be kept in creative tension for the spiritual well-being of the Body of Christ...
...The meaning of consensus has been eviscerated...
...First, the genuiness...
...Episcopal unity is revealed as enforced, not genuine...
Vol. 125 • August 1998 • No. 14
