Pope Benedict

In a March 28 article on the present plight of the Pope and priestly pedophilia (wow, I didn’t intend that alliteration!), the NEW YORK TIMES wrote: “As archbishop, Benedict expended more energy pursuing theological dissidents than sexual predators.”  They’re referring to the early 80s, when Pope Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger presiding over the diocese of Munich.

The claim has to be set in context, as John Allen reminds us in an op-ed piece in the same issue of the NYT.  In those days, priestly pedophilia was understood to be more of a moral disorder than a psychological disorder.  If it’s a moral problem, you can go to confession with a “firm purpose of amendment,” and then get back to your life armed with God’s grace.  If the problem is psychological, you will need serious therapy  and maybe God’s grace will be able to bring you only so far. The bishops, at that time, didn’t realize the messy psychic roots of pedophilia.

Okay. That’s true.  But what was becoming clear in the 80′s, I’m told, was the reality of post-traumatic stress and the disorder it causes. That was seen in Vietnam vets.  And it was also clear that the trauma of sexual abuse of children can have the same enduring devastating effects.   That the bishops could have, or should have, known:   If they thought that the moral disorder of priestly pedophilia could be set aright in the confessional and through grace, they should have also known (and maybe did) that the psychological disorder that the abuse caused in children could not be handled so neatly.  Such disorder and pain pervaded the life of the abused victims into their adulthood, long after the priests were absolved and back at the altar.  Where was the pastoral concern for the children who, as we have heard, were sometimes required to take oaths of silence about what had happened to them?

And here is where the TIMES article is telling us something.  What seems to be true of Ratzinger was broadly true of many bishops: he was more concerned about the horrors of heresy than the horrors of psychological devastations of sexually abused children.

That brings me to the “dictatorship of relativism.”  This was the phrase that Cardinal Ratzinger used in the sermon he preached for all his fellow Cardinals during the Mass before they all entered the Sacred Conclave and elected Ratzinger as Pope.  Many commentators have pointed out that it was this rallying call to oppose relativism that roused many Cardinals to vote for him.

Relativism, loosely described, means “anything goes.”  Ratzinger was going to put a stop to that among theologians.  That’s what occupied him as archbishop of Munich, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as Pope. There are limits to what a theologian can say. If he or she goes too far, they lose their job.

But while Ratzinger and many Catholic bishops have opposed the dictatorship of theological relativism,  they seem to have  slacked on opposing — indeed, they seem to be fostering — a dictatorship of moral relativism when it comes to how they have handled not only pedophile priests, but bishops who have covered for, and then reassigned, such priests.

While theologians who have gone too far in questioning the uniqueness of Christ have been forbidden to teach, bishops who have not reported pedophile priests to the authorities have been promoted.

Where’s the relativism?  Where’s the “anything goes”?  Who is the dictator of relativism?

What Eagleton is saying applies, I think, to a lot of liberals.  And we have a lot of liberals here at Union. (I’m one of them.) We seem to have a bit of an allergy to people who speak passionately.  So often in class discussions, when someone waxes passionate about what they are proposing,  warning signs start to flash on  faces around the circle.  Is it because passion sounds like proselytizing? Like someone is imposing their views on us as the only really true view?  This is especially the case when passion is about religion.   It’s one thing to be passionate about the Yankees. Quite another to be passionate about Christianity.

But being passionate is not necessarily the same thing as being authoritarian or exclusive or narrow-minded.  When you’re passionate about something it’s because you think it is true and valuable. That doesn’t mean you necessarily think it’s the only thing that is true and valuable. (Okay, Yankee fans might.)   If I really believe that something is true and good, I’d better be passionate about it. I’d better want to tell others about it.  Otherwise, I don’t really believe it’s true and good.  We need more passion.

But it has to be passion that respects and is open to the passion of others.  And that means,  I think, that if we need to speak with passion, it should be passion-plus-humility.  We’re convinced about what we believe and we want to tell others why.  But if we’re humble as well as passionate, we will recognize that the truth that we hold, as sound and beautiful as it is, can never be the whole truth. There’s always more. And that leaves room for other truths and other people who are passionate about their truth.

If we can be passionate and at the same time humble, we won’t scare people with our passion.   On the contrary, our passion will be a dialogical passion — one that calls out the passion in others.

Pascal: We must love things before we can know them.

Kierkegaard: A believer is someone in love.

St.Anselm: I believe in order to understand.

To really understand something we have to be in a relationship with it, involved with it, to some extent given to it. I guess that’s what Pascal was getting at.

But that’s really what “faith” is.  It’s not a rational assent to a given truth — like “I believe in God.”  Rather, it’s a commitment, a trust, a giving of oneself to a way of life that is based on what we trust is true.  And when we are so committed, when we are “walking the truth,” we come to know and be able to “talk the truth.”  I guess that’s what Kierkegaard was getting at.

So Anselm is right:  When we have faith in something — that is, when we trust and then act on that trust, we discover what is real and worthwhile.

So truth doesn’t grab us by the brain. It grabs us by the heart.  –  And then, what we know with our heart, we have to think about with our brain.

When the heart is so reached, an old fashioned, theological word that applies is “revelation” — something is being made known to us that slips into us, turns us on, enables us to go forward, fills us with hope and determination.

A more acceptable terminology for today, perhaps, is to “feel the spirit.” To so feel the spirit when our imagination is excited and our emotions surge is to feel the Spirit, I would say. The Spirit is a lot more available than many hierarchs, especially in my RC church, realize or admit. Revelation abounds.