"It's The Same Old Song" From The Tablet

From the Tablet
Profound questions are raised by the way Cardinal Franc Rodé, head of the Vatican department that deals with religious orders, admonished the Society of Jesus for failing to “think with the Church”. In a sermon at the start of their 35th General Congregation in Rome, Cardinal Rodé told the assembled Jesuits of his “sadness and anxiety” at the Society’s recent record, urging greater fidelity to the hierarchy. Certainly, relations between local Jesuit priests and diocesan bishops have sometimes been adversarial. Given the Church’s episcopal structure, religious orders that stand outside that structure will experience conflicts with it. They can develop a mindset that sees things differently from local bishops’ conferences.

Yet Ignatius Loyola made “thinking with the church” a special obligation ( A founding principle ) on members of his new order. The question appears to be - does “Church” ( I am sure "New Models of Church" are being constructed at this very moment ) equal “hierarchy”?

To Cardinal Rodé, any such conflicts must be resolved in favour of the bishops, who are sacramentally commissioned to think the Church’s thoughts. In the celebrated ( that is debatable ) case of the Jesuit magazine America, whose editor Fr. Thomas Reese departed after incurring Vatican disapproval, there were two views emerging about the right direction for the American Church.

Through a series of strategic appointments, the Vatican had steered the American hierarchy away from the more progressive era represented by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and Archbishop Rembert Weakland, towards a more conservative model. The new mood was to confront the Church’s internal dissenters, not debate with them.

The American Jesuit province, or a substantial part of it, felt differently. So, probably, did the great majority of American Catholics. The divisions in the American Church are serious, but whether it is a proper role for a religious order that swears obedience to the Pope to take sides against the hierarchy he has appointed is another matter. Part of the problem lies with another but equally valid dimension of the Jesuit role - that of standing at the interface between Church and secular society, explaining one to the other. As Pope Paul VI put it, the Jesuits are there “at the crossroads of ideologies, in the front line of social conflict”. Cardinal Rodé recognised that Jesuit charism, and indeed urged them to greater zeal. But explaining requires understanding, a willingness to engage and explore.

It is no coincidence that Jesuits make up the bulk of theologians investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ( understatement ) usually for exploring and engaging too far from the official position.

Instead, according to the cardinal, they should be defending the teaching of the Church. But do Jesuit theologians have no role to play in the development of that teaching? There would have been no Second Vatican Council without them, no Declaration on Religious Liberty, for instance, without John Courtney Murray SJ, no Lumen Gentium without Karl Rahner SJ.

The real issue raised by Cardinal Rodé’s intervention, which it will be vital to thrash out, is whether a duty to conform to the thinking of the hierarchy, particularly if imposed by disciplinary measures, might have such a chilling effect as to discourage all theological research, good as well as bad. ( I will not clean my room, supper is not important to me )

It is not always easy to say immediately which is a constructive and legitimate contribution and which is not; nor are local bishops ( note the Bishop abuse ) always going to be the best judges.

Hat Tip to Anglican blog Covenant read the full post (here)