One fascination with Catholicism... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, May 13, 2012, 00:55 (403 days ago) @ Nicholas

Nicholas, I have often wondered if one of the deep attractions that we perhaps all share about Catholicism is this sense of belonging to something international and universal? That was one of the almost subconscious things that set us apart from the protestant churches and even the Eastern rite Catholic and Orthodox churches? We belonged to something "big" in the sense that it was embraced by more people than any other religion and that gave us some sort of confidence in our faith and beliefs?

I frame the foregoing as questions because I'm not sure how idiosyncratic that is to me and how much it might be a widely held perception. I can't remember now if it was just my father, or a more widely voiced idea, but he used to always say how good it was to visit any country in the world and know that you could find Mass celebrated somewhere — or even just the thought that the Mass we were attending somewhere in the outback of Australia was also been celebrated virtually around the clock in many other locations around the world.

What I'm asking, or pondering here, is if our fascination with questions of who will be next pope is not necessarily only tied up with eccelesial politics and personalities but a sense that "we're losing something" — Catholicism is losing some of its universality or even "catholicity"? It's looking just as fallible as all the other Christian churches and we have some kind of shared sadness, nostalgia or perhaps even a sense of regret that we feel a sense of disillusion or a sense of anger that we were "sold a pup". Do we have some deep sense of loss that the universality, catholicity and the shear appeal of Catholicism to so many seems to be passing and we wish it weren't so?

I think humanity still needs some point of primacy and some symbol of religious unity, universality and catholicity. What the educated, reflective parts of Catholicism appear to be moving away from is a particular view of "primacy" where God speaks down through one single channel to humanity — i.e. through the Pope and the so-called Magisterium. The Spirit speaks to ALL of humanity but mixed up with all the communication is a heck of a lot of noise created by our human egos and insecurities. We need some mechanism or "place of authority" where the entire human family is listened to and we reach consensus on what is of real spiritual value and what is merely superstition, old wives tales, the visions of mad men and women, etc., etc.. I'm not sure if it needs to be embodied in a particular person or physical structure. In politics we are heading in that direction with the United Nations and its general secretary and the assembly which is looked to as a place where the political problems of the world are sorted out. In the sciences the authority mechanism seems more decentralised and diverse but I sense there is still this sense of some place where scientific truth is ultimately discerned and accepted even if we cannot point to a particular physical place like, say, the United Nations General Assembly or the Security Council.

What I'm essentially querying here from your post is this idea that a hankering or nostalgia for a place of primacy and symbol of universality, catholicity and unity is necessarily all bad?

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]