What is the Church community?

Fairly often, accusations of "dissent" are thrown around on internet discussion forums. Typically, someone of a conservative or traditional bent accuses someone else of being a dissenter, or of promoting dissent. But it cuts both ways; it's not unknown for traditionalists to have the label thrown back at them.

The mutual exchange of insults hardly promotes dialogue or understanding. But, leaving that aside, is it fair to say that an excessively strict conservative or traditionalist standpoint amounts to dissent?

Traditionalist Dissent

It can, of course. There are traditionalists who have formally separated themselves from Rome - or, at least, from the Bishop of Rome. (They still adhere to a mythical Rome of their own imagining.) They deny that Benedict XVI is the Pope, and either they maintain that there is currently no Pope ( and that there hasn't been for some time) or they elect their own Pope. They repudiate the teachings of recent popes, and of Vatican II. Often they deny the sacramental validity of the Mass when celebrated according to the current Roman rite. I think it's fair to call them dissenters.

Traditionalists in the Church

But they're not typical traditionalists. Most traditionalists acknowledge the Pope and accept the validity of the current Roman rite, lamenting instead the loss of the reverence and significance of the Tridentine rite. Their unhappiness with the church today has more to do with style and conduct and lack of disciplinary and liturgical rigour than with specific points of doctrine.

They're not dissenters. Even if they are too narrow in their understanding of the faith and insist, say, that the existence of limbo has been infallibly taught, this is not dissent. A Catholic may believe in limbo, and still be a Catholic. And, in maintaining that limbo has been infallibly taught, he is studying church teaching and attempting to discern the core deposit of the faith, a right which more liberal Catholics also exercise.

Is There a Problem?

So is this brand of traditionalism a problem? Is it fundamentally objectionable? Or is it a choice that any Catholic can make, in the same way as we can choose to participate in Marian devotions, or pay attention to the private revelations claimed by certain visionaries?

Yes, it can be a real problem. But the problem has little to do with doctrine, and nothing to do with dissent. It has to do with communion.

Communion is fundamental; every bit as fundamental as doctrine. The gospels, in fact, have comparatively little to say about doctrine - the church was pretty much left to nut doctrine out for itself - but a good deal to say about communion. We are urged to form and maintain good relationships with one another and to participate in the assembly (ekklesia, which we translate as church). We are promised that, when we come together in Christ's name, Christ is with us always.

The Real Presence

This is not a metaphorical presence of Christ. In the Incarnation, God takes on a real, material body. The Body of Christ is made real in

• the historical figure of Jesus,
• the Eucharist, and
• the communion of believers, the church.

So, to receive the Eucharist or to touch the community of believers is to be touched by Christ, just as surely as if we had been touched by Jesus himself. And that touch is what heals us, forgives us, and leads us to salvation.

Catholicism is particularly strong on communion; the church, in the words of the Catechism, is "the sacrament of the inner union of men with God . . . the sacrament of the unity of the human race."

Communion is formalised in the role of the bishop - I am in communion with my bishop and he is in communion with the bishop of Rome. So, through my bishop I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome, and will all the other bishops in communion with him, and with all the Christians in communion with them. But it's not just a formal communion. It is unity expressed not only in a shared faith and a shared sacramental life, but in real relationships between individuals,, and in real relationships between communities.

Communion and Salvation

Karl Rahner saw communion as instrumental in effecting salvation. He reckoned that our love for one another gives us not just friendship and companionship, important though that is. It also links us to love in such a way that when we stand before the Lord of All and make our choice, a fundamental choice for all eternity, we stand already connected in love in a communion of grace, and therefore much more prone to choose love and God.

Traditionalism and Communion

The more strident and exclusive varieties of traditionalism seem to me to be basically opposed to valuing or building communion, and therefore to be basically un-Catholic, however much they may claim to value the doctrinal and liturgical treasures of the Catholic heritage.

• Attempts to define doctrine narrowly with a view to excluding those whose doctrinal views do not appeal to you are attacks upon communion.
• Invitations - usually expressed in sneering terms - to advocates for, say, the ordination of women to leave and join another church or set up their own churches are attacks on communion.
• Knee-jerk accusations of dissent are attacks on communion.
• Constant, carping criticism of your bishop over cathedral architecture, liturgical 'abuses' in his diocese, education policy and everything else besides are attacks on communion.

These things do not become any less of an attack on communion if accompanied by fawning declarations of loyalty and submission to the church or to present or former popes. The church is first of all the local church, and if your behaviour, demeanour and attitude breaks down the communion of the local church rather than building it up, then how you feel about Pope Benedict is not all that relevant.

Without communion we have no church, and without a church we have no scripture, no tradition, no sacraments. Attacks on communion are far more damaging and corrosive to the life of faith than dissent can ever be.

Again, this cuts both ways. It's not just traditionalists whose behaviour can be destructive of communion. But I think the weak spot of traditionalism or conservatism is that it is prone to overemphasise the dangers of doctrinal dissent, and that it fails to see the evil of behaviour which destroys communion.

Photo Credit:
Background image: photographer Marie Jeanne Iliescu, Bucharest, Rumania. Image sourced from stock.xchng.

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