September 26, 2012
David
Timbs
The
coded language of the New Evangelisation
In
his v2catholic blog yesterday, Martin
Mallon reminded readers of the central importance that the Vatican places on the
Apostolic Letter, Porta Fidei. Last
year Cardinal Levada of the CDF, along with a select group of mainly Curial
officials, prepared this document at the request of Benedict XVI. It was
approved and promulgated late 2011. This type of document is one of the most
authoritative forms of teaching available to a Pope. In this case, its primary
goal is to set out a clear programme for the Official celebration of the Year
of Faith. During this time, the Catholic Church will remember and observe
the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council in
October, 1962
Porta
Fidei makes
it abundantly clear that the Pope has determined that one of the most
‘authentic fruits of Vat II and tool for its interpretation’ is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
It also declares that the CCC
accurately reflects the continuity of the teachings of the Catechism with the
Magisterium of both JPII and Benedict XVI. In other words, the CCC,
congruent with the teaching office of these two Popes, represents a closed
circle of hermeneutics for Catholics desiring to revisit and re-examine the
documents of the Council.
Catholics
might well be alarmed at this as it indicates, with growing clarity, that a
movement to roll back the initiatives
and vision of Vatican II has been gathering strength over the past thirty to
forty years. It has largely come from the Roman Curia but has consistently been
validated by John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
At
the heart of this roll back is a
programmatic agenda for recreating the post Vat II Church after the image and
likeness of an ecclesiastical entity of a former age. It is essentially about a
return to a Catholic Church governed by the subculture of clerical
authoritarianism and undifferentiated dogmatism. It relies on appeals to a
particular form of blind obedience and infantile compliance still embedded in
the memories of those born around or after WWII. Vat II proved too risky and
dangerous. It had to be controlled, moderated and re-interpreted by those who
had lost their never at best or who, at worst, had refused to receive its
message.
One
of the most obvious features of the hierarchical rhetoric leading up to the Year
of Faith is the constant appeal to that very same culture of so-called
humility, obedience. In fact, it is conformity. The problem is that the
interpretative keys which unlock this rhetoric and its loaded and coded
dialects, have to be wrestled off the insiders who control the agenda. People
are doing this rather successfully these days. A recent example of this
hierarchical messaging.......
On
September 18, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia gave an address at a
Prayer breakfast in Los Angeles. The major thrust of this was the New
Evangelisation, with particular emphasis on its importance for the United States
of America. Chaput stressed that the responsibility for the New Evangelisation
lay with all Catholics. It would be best promoted and made to flourish
“through humility and spiritual discipline” – code for ‘toeing the party
line by uncritically submitting to re-indoctrination.’
“The
task of preaching, teaching, growing and living the Catholic faith in our time,
...., belongs to you and me. No one else can do it.” The Archbishop echoes the
rhetoric of Benedict XVI and his fellow American bishops in referring to the
dangers of secularism, moral relativism and the modern crisis of faith that has
led to the “collapse of cultural unity.”
The
current language of ‘Culture Wars’ and the dialectic of ‘Us and Them,’
articulated mainly by Western bishops, heavily colours the discourse.
Chaput
concluded by proposing that the great antidote for these dangerous contagions
are to be found in embracing ‘the suggestions’ of Pope Benedict for the
observance of the Year of Faith. These are that parishes and other Church groups
should study the Creed and the Catechism of the Catholic Church because “right
doctrine unifies Catholics and points towards Jesus Christ.”
David Timbs, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.