Today's lead commentary seeks to draw your attention firstly to a string on our forum begun by Sue asking the question "What is the spiritual goal of Christianity?" [LINK]. One of the responses posted in that string was a link to the address given by Dr Anthony Padovano at the American Catholic Council which endeavours to articulate the Vatican II vision of what the spiritual goal of Christianity, or at least Catholicism, is [LINK]. Sue's string has already generated some very thoughtful responses. To be further provocative I reproduce my response below from the string as to why I believe the vision of Vatican II has all gone belly up. Elsewhere in Sue's string I've articulated my own view of what the spiritual goal of Christianity, ought to be. ...BMC, Editor.

Where did the vision of Vatican II all go belly up?

This Anthony Padovano essay [LINK] keeps coming back to us like a boomerang, doesn't it? Unfortunately his is one of the sessions I missed at the American Catholic Council but someone posted it on our forum here soon afterwards — and this is its third or fourth reappearance since then.

A pdf copy of Dr Anthony Padovano's address to the American Catholic Council can be found HERE on the ACC website.

Essays like this do excite — as did the whole of Vatican II itself. Those of us old enough to remember can remember the excitement stirred up in almost every parish and Catholic community of the world by the Second Vatican Council. So many, in so many places, were inspired to move out into the world and "implement the vision" our ecclesial leaders had been inspired to give us.

Today we ask: where did it all go belly up?

The other night I read through all the comments on the "alternative (conservative) petition" to the one recently organised by Catholics for Renewal. Fortunately there are not many, only around 800 signatures, compared to the CfR petition. The comments on the alternative petition though drive home to me "where it all went belly up". Almost built into human nature seemingly is this enormous fear, and insecurity. Some people crave certitude and absolutes seemingly more than they crave their breakfast cereal each morning. Without certitude and absolutes they are dead — their entire lives become worthless and not worth living.

I honestly do believe it is a small canker who have caused it to all go belly up. This is why I keep writing that we're dealing with forces in the human psyche here that are more powerful than the forces at the centre of our sun that drive the solar system. Or forces as powerful as those small extremes within Islam who honestly do believe it is morally legitimate to drive jet airliners into the World Trade Centre in order to impose their version of God's Law on all of humanity.

This small minority do see the "Spiritual Goal of Christianity" basically through the paradigm of what we teach little children at the kindergarten stage of development. Christianity — any kind of religion — is taught, and perceived, as some "game" of docility and obedience; being obedient to the kindy teacher in the hope of the reward of elephant stamps on the wrist, glitter stars on their kindy artwork, and eventual promotion into "big school" for their obedience and docility. Independence is not encouraged. "Success" is all connected with the words obedience and docility NOT in learning to make independent, adult like decisions based on conformity to truth but based on conformity to "the rules" written in large letters on the kindergarten wall.

Ironically it has been institutional Catholicism that was the catalyst for educating most of the educated world beyond that kindergarten level of what it was all about. A small sector of society were never educated beyond that, and beyond a priest coming in and raping their own children, they are never likely to be educated beyond that. They crave certitude, and simple answers, more than they crave their morning break-fast. No one can reason with these people. Their "problem" is down in the human emotions not up in the human intellect. Take away their certitudes and you take away their life. I doubt that even if Jesus put in a personal appearance to them, even he would be capable of convincing them. That is a measure of how deeply ingrained is this craving for certitude and "simple rules": "do this and this and this, and don't do that and that and that, and that's the only way you get to heaven!" There is no allowance in that for personal choice and discretion — the real "free will" that is supposed to be God's great gift to each of us.

The leadership problem...

The problem is that these "insecure folk" do not just exist out in the lay world. They infest the Vatican and the priesthood every bit as much as they exist in wider society. They have been relentless in their endeavours to undo Vatican II and all those concepts that Anthony Padovano writes about. All that stuff is anathema to them — more poisonous to their sense of spiritual health than arsenic.

Dr Hans Küng attempted to be silenced by Benedict XVI and the Vatican

They have schemed and caucused at every turn and got their men into the governing positions of the institution (and they usually are all men because of the nature of the institution). It's all written there in this simple vision of Joseph Ratzinger when he attempted to place the gaffer tape over the mouth of Hans Küng: "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals." That today, folks, is the governing mantra of those who control institutional Catholicism. The quest of these "governors" is not to encourage the ordinary pew-sitters "to become more like God" ... to think and act more like God. It is to make them more docile and obedient to their rules and certitudes as a kindergarten teacher endeavours to make all her students more docile and compliant to her classroom and playground rules.

What complicates the picture is that these insecure folk in governing positions are assisted by the Bullies who don't believe in anything other than their own power and who, to borrow an idea for a prominent Australian politician, would sell their own arses in order to increase their own power.

As I keep writing: we're dealing with forces in the human psyche here that defy description. That is the fundamental issue that needs to be confronted.

Brian Coyne, 18 September 2011

[Index of Commentaries by Brian Coyne]