Stuart Koehl, in FT: Same Stuff, Different Day

In the last two posts, to my thinking, we've been having a conversation about the nature of Catholic faith.  Some have argued that the Church is so damaged that we need to withdraw from the institution to practice our faith in the integrity of our individual selves (see my previous two entries, on Charles Pierce's recent essay in the Boston Globe magazine).  I have disagreed, saying that no matter how damaged the institution, it is vital to the very nature of Catholic faith; that Catholic faith is inherently sacramental, communal and "ordered."  In this sacramentality, I'd like to further argue, it is also profoundly "public."

Here comes another way of thinking about the same principle, from a different quarter.  In today's "On the Square" entry at the First Things blog, Stuart Koehl suggests, in "An Independent Witness to Marriage," that, to solve the problem of the state increasingly favoring same-sex marriage, the church should stop co-operating with the state as a partner in the process of marriage.  Marriage by the state and marriage by the church would simply be separate things.

Koehl argues that this would free the Church to hold fast to its belief that marriage is to be reserved for heterosexual unions.   It would be free to "witness" to a specific understanding of Catholic marriage that is counter, perhaps in many ways, to the understanding of civil marriage.  It would be free to set its own standards, and -- though he doesn't say this -- it would make sacramental marriage a much more freely (though perhaps even less frequently chosen) sacrament.   All that freedom, what American could object?

Pierce: response

[This is an update to the previous post]

Tom Roberts at NCR mentioned the Pierce essay on his blog. In the comments section of that blog, I mentioned my response to Pierce (see previous post here).  Roberts then did a follow-up post, highlighting my response to Pierce (thank you).

So now, via Roberts' blog on the National Catholic Reporter website, here's a heartfelt, and thoughtful response to my post by Winifred Holloway.  I don't think that we're on opposing sides, we're all thinking aloud here -- and I must acknowledge that many of my own friends (both "regular" parish members and theologians) would say she represents them well:

I think Nancy Dallavalle misses the point of Pierce's essay. It was not that he was merely giving intellectual assent in his own way to the Church in his mind. I read it as a frustrated cry of a committed Catholic who is dismayed, possibly heartbroken, (I know I am) by the retreat the leadership has made into the medieval era with its pomp, privileges and a seeming notion that they posses the divine right of kings. This is not the Church that we came of age in. It is not the Church that I always thought of as a light in the world and was proud and grateful to be part of. I don't think Pierce was denying our community with one another. I think he believes the community has been hijacked by a willful, obstinate and overprivliged hierarchy. They do not listen to the other members of the community. Since lay people have no power in this "community", many like Charlie (and me) attend Mass, do what we can as Christians in the world, and hold to our beliefs in the faith that has nourished us all our lives. Not easy to do. Those open windows have been slammed shut. A kings and serfs church is not a community.

Well said.  This is why we are all frustrated.  But that faith ("that has nourished us all our lives") is not free-floating, it is bound to -- given by/lived through -- an institution.  Grace is mediated (not only, but) primarily and in an exemplary way in the sacraments offered by a specific community that is "small c" catholic  horizontally (now, in many places, in communion in the present) and "large C" Catholic vertically (received, in communion with the past, and in particular ways, in communion with the founding story).

I know -- you knew that already, thank you very much, professor.   But I think that "Catholic" (sacramental, structured community) is the most powerful social and religious idea around, and I don't want it lost just because every possible mis-reading of it seems to be ascendant all around us -- in the medieval flailing that deforms reasonable questions about liturgy in Rome; in the tribalism that deforms the common good sensibility so needed for "Catholics in politics" in the U.S.; in the fetishizing instrumentalism that blunts, world-wide, the Church's crucial message about the absolute dignity of all human life.

'Catholic' is how we are together, it is how God is with us, it is how we should be with the world.  We can despair, we can fail, we can rail -- but we cannot retreat from this.  Ms. Holloway is right on target and, like Pierce (and myself), seems unlikely to quit the institution she decries.  We are all here, in the pews, this very mixed story is ours, as is the grace that we find mediated in this structured community.  We can cling to the notion that we are somehow innocent victims, or we can try to move the very mixed story forward.  I'm pushing for the latter.

Charles Pierce, Boston Globe: MTP

In this weekend's Boston Globe magazine, author Charles P. Pierce outlines a vision of a late-modern (hyper-masculine?) settlement with Catholic Christianity in his "What I Believe."  Outraged by the failures of the institution, failures that he correctly observes are systemic, not merely regrettable episodes, Pierce limns the lament of one who sees the faith in the somber hues of purple.  He values the rich intellectual and cultural story that has shaped him, but he now must jettison the structures that have carried and shaped that story.  He continues to "practice" as a Catholic but, as an American, he claims, what is central to him is that his faith "is mine -- a personal church..."

Reading it, I realize that yes, he does speak for many Catholics who, in order to stay sane, have mentally separated themselves from the institution, "defecting in place," as they continue to attend Mass and receive the sacraments.  I think he means to give his readers permission to do the same.

I understand the offer. I decline.

Sucker. Punched.

David Gibson, Politics Daily:

New rules the Vatican is expected to issue soon on penalties for priests who sexually abuse children will also put the ordaining of women in the same category of the most serious crimes under church law.

Church sources told Catholic News Service that the new "norms," as the policies are called, will include the "attempted ordination of women" among the list of most serious crimes, or what are known as "delicta graviora."