Not taking it seriously... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, April 05, 2012, 00:49 (415 days ago) @ James

I also like your other observation that you've made in previous posts about some people not taking it that seriously. These people that we're discussing here, it seems to me, are people who did take it seriously. And it's precisely because they took it seriously — whether you're talking biblical scholarship, theology or philosophy — you do have to reach a point where "it doesn't all add up". That's where the exit doors begin to beckon.

A lot of the leaders of the Church (i.e. bishops) are not particularly intellectual. They get to where they are because they're good administrators, or adept politicians, not because of great intellectual capacities. Probably a lot of them never pick up another book on theology or biblical research after they leave seminary. These sort of discussions probably fly over their heads by a few thousand feet. Others are basically in it for the power, the dress-ups and so on and again, they're playing a different tune and "don't take any of this seriously". Some might be very bright in one sense but be scientifically naive. I tend to put Benedict in that category and there are others I can think of. That's where I have this picture of someone speaking in Chinese to a person who only understands English. They can "hear" the words in the sense of hearing sounds coming out of the Chinese speaker's mouth but the words mean absolutely nothing because the English speaker is simply operating out of a different paradigm. When scientists say that there is simply no evidence from all our observations of "interventions" from some supernatural force to flick planets, stars or galaxies into different orbits, or molecules and atoms, to the person who sincerely does believe that the sun started dancing over Fatima it's like the Chinese speaker trying to converse with the exclusively English speaker. No intelligible communication is ultimately possible.

I honestly think the institution is cactus. Even if Benedict exited the scene tomorrow all the "best and brightest" left decades ago. The odds on bet is that the next pope will be a clone of JPII or BXVI. The gene pool at the top is now depleted. The future literally is a "smaller, purer Church" that's increasingly irrelevant to the mainstream of society. It'll just become another of the many cults or denominations in Christianity. Those still participating sincerely believing that they have some exclusive insight into God's laws over all the rest of them — and they all thinking the same in reverse. It's naive in the extreme to believe there is ever going to be a Third Vatican Council or that the institution we've known is going to return and "pick up the threads" of what the progressive bishops discerned at the time of Vatican II. If there is ever another Council it's purpose will be to dogmatically undo everything about Vatican II and to dogmatise further the dogmas of the Council of Trent.

The interesting question today is what those who have departed eventually do — the 90%? I sense that the vast majority have not become atheists. The drift is more towards agnosticism or even a less formal acknowledgement of "I simply do not know" without wanting to categorise themselves with some label. There still is an appreciation that there is a "spiritual" side to life, and to being, however difficult it might be "to nail it down". I sense there is still a great yearning in society for liturgy — this sense of seeking to grasp these ephemeral things around our human hopes and aspirations and a sense of nostalgia and respect for where we have collectively come from — the sort of stuff that really comes out at the opening and closing ceremonies at things like the Olympic Games. Catholicism (and possibly the other religions) have tended to deify their liturgies. The liturgy itself, the form and rules of the liturgy, are worshipped more than what they are meant to point to. The formal survey results show time and again that Church liturgies bore people out of their minds today. A lot of people simply give up attendance because they find it boring. That's probably one of the biggest factors for the exit of the majority of young people. Many in our generation got out because of anger over things like Humanae Vitae. HV is largely a non-issue for young people in my experience. The driver is not anger it is simply a sense of feeling bored mindless.

Will it eventually coalesce into some institutional form or, as we seem to be seeing in the Scandinavian countries, something that is almost formless?

Within the institution though you can't even have an open conversation about any of these things because of the thought police and the temple guards.

That address by +Geoff Robinson I published yesterday I find even more astonishing today than when I first heard him deliver it 16 months ago. It might be argued that Robinson is like some of these ex-priests. He had to hand in his resignation in order to be able to say the sort of things he aired in that address. Geoffrey Robinson is another who "does take it seriously" but, in the end, if you do take it seriously ultimately you have to find the exit door, or sit in the side aisles and become a commentator rather than an active participant.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]