Articles

A Spiritually Deafening Silence

Editorial FAITH Magazine September-October 2008

In the authentically Catholic vision of the Second Vatican Council, the source of authority for the transmission of Revelation is Jesus Christ Himself, the Word of God made flesh for us, handed down to us in Scripture and ecclesial Tradition. To receive this revelation is to be caught up in the deepest personal relationship possible. The authentic, authoritative teacher of this is the Magisterium, and rightly so. The history of the Church itself has shown that “graced subjectivity” and my own “experience and narration” can indeed be flawed: there is a thing called sin and we are all damaged by it. That is why the Church has had to have recourse to Ecumenical Councils and the Magisterium when an Arius, a Nestorius, a Luther or a Tyrrel have come along. Subjectivity alone is not enough: it needs to be healed and it needs to be enlightened by the grace-fllled truth of Christ.

The paradigm of Emmaus is so significant in this matter but often misused by catechists schooled in the approach of Our Faith Story to bolster up a false approach to catechetics and religious education. It was not that Jesus helped the two disciples to discover their own subjectivity, to make explicit the grace that already made them what they were; no, he said to them, “You foolish men!” He proceeded to teach them about the scriptures that were pointing to Him. It is true that he begins when he meets them on the road by asking about their discussion, that he takes them where they are; but this is because they are where they should not be - they need to come to faith, these foolish men so slow to believe what was in the scriptures.

Heythrop’s overview goes on, “In so far as the formal structure of doctrinal catechesis is not explicit in Our Faith Story, its ecclesial mediation represents a more explicitly ‘person-centred’ approach.” Here again is a central problem with such an approach. It implies that the formal structure of doctrinal catechesis is less person-centred than the approach of Our Faith Story. Nothing could be further from the truth. Again we would want to note that in Faith movement we do affirm the need to develop the traditional presentation of this point, as we briefly attempted, for instance, in our May editorial. But, living in a world where sin, violence, division and warfare are around us, activities embarked upon by believers and non-believers alike, it is hard to maintain that Fr Purnell’s vision is very reality-centred. How is it that a graced subjectivity, indeed one who’s nature is somehow constituted by grace, can engage in such actions? The whole approach of Our Faith Story, Here I Am and Weaving the Web lacks a serious catechesis on the reality of sin and, in particular, the damage of original sin with which each person is born. A truly “person-centred” approach would deal with these issues. But perhaps that would be a little too close to “the formal structure of doctrinal catechesis”. For although Our Faith Story does deal with some issues of “painful situations and responses in us - sense of guilt, failure, etc.”, yet it seeks to see them against the backdrop of cultural pressures and circumstances. Such a consideration can indeed be useful but only if its foundation is in a more realistic account of the intrinsically wounded though redeemable and indeed redeemed nature of humanity.

The next two sentences of the footnote in On the Way to Life are of interest:
“ While acknowledging these very considerable strengths, there is a risk that the doctrinal structure of faith, the grammar of the Church’s narrative, can be played down so that the actual incorporation into the ‘Church’s faith story’ is not as effective as it may be. Our Faith Story has proved its worth and is a rich, significant work of considerable insight and methodological wisdom which should not be lost.”
At least there is an explicit recognition of this “risk” and in the body of the document, what our May discussion saw as an inadequate attempt to mitigate this. The point is that this is more than a risk: it is the methodological problem with Fr Purnell’s approach. It is very hard to see the need for the historical mediation of revelation and grace by the Church in a system which sees each person as graced already. Furthermore, the doctrinal structure of faith is much more than the “grammar of the Church’s narrative”: it is the reality of communion with the Trinity through the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made Man and the centre of all human history. The Church’s “faith story” is more than just a graced subjectivity: it is the response by the redeemed Bride of Christ, of which we are all members by Baptism (note, by Baptism, not by some a-sacramental graced subjectivity), to the Lord who lived, died and rose again in history and whom she awaits to complete all things in His Second Coming. This response is indeed already the work of grace, but this is the grace achieved and communicated to the Church by the Lord’s redemptive work. This is a work accomplished in history and mediated through the historical reality of the church. Ultimately it is indeed hard to see the proper place of doctrinal teaching as captured by the Catechism and emphasised by Fit for Mission?: Schools outside of this Catholic vision.

Has the Alternative Vision Borne Fruit?

The final sentence of the passage quoted above from the footnote makes for depressing reading. Apparently, Our Faith Story has achieved something which few of us actually see in the pastoral field: it has “proved its worth.” But it hasn’t. Indeed the past thirty years, and the past twenty-three years since the publication of Fr Purnell’s work have seen the virtual complete failure of this approach in catechetics and in religious education in our schools. Our schools, through no fault of the many highly dedicated teachers, have become factories of lapsation, where the overall peer pressure to lapse from the Faith is too strong for most young people. The content of religious education is too feeble to sustain faith and lacks the power to convince young people that there are reasons for believing and reasons for living their lives for God.

If the review of the CES of these programmes is going to use such documents as its background then we should all be very worried. Instead of using the Church’s own teaching and approach, summed up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the CES imagines that it is better to use the ideology which has dominated Catholic education in England and Wales for too long and with woeful results. The level of faith awareness among most children in our schools and among most adults is actually fairly low. The experience of many interested observers is that most young people who go to a secondary Catholic school are not sure what a sacrament actually is or does and would find it hard to name them. In one class this writer was told there were twenty-two, then nine, then three sacraments. Again this is not the fault of our teachers. They have to use the materials pressed upon them by diocesan education departments - and these mostly form part of the National Project. Of course those formed in the theological vision behind the National Project may well not think the above findings of factual ignorance are particularly lamentable. But this is our point. In terms of handing on a revealed, incarnational, religion and its ‘saving truths’ the National Project as presently constructed is not ‘fit for purpose’ and thus certainly not ‘ft for mission’.

So what is the way forward? Bishop O’Donoghue’s document shows the way - which in turn may partly explain the silence and shyness we highlighted at the beginning of this piece. By using the Catechism of the Catholic Church the bishop actually shows how Catholic education, and also ultimately catechesis, can be presented in an organic way. Fit for Mission? Schools says, “The organic structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is divided into four parts or movements corresponding to the four fundamental aspects of our life in Christ that we see in The Acts of the Apostles.”It goes on to list the four pillars as the Profession of Faith, Sacraments, the Moral Life and Prayer. Then it tells us what Cardinal Schönborn said, that “the Four Pillars of the Catechism without doubt constitute the fundamental sources of the life, the faith, and the teaching of the Church” (page 27). Indeed, the whole basis for catechesis from the earliest times of the Church is summed up in these pillars. This has been a tried and tested pattern of handing on the Faith in the life of the Church. In the light of where British Catholics find themselves at this juncture it is particularly worrying that the CES clearly does not see this as the “foundation” or “background” for their review.

Some in this debate have pointed to a difference between catechesis and religious education. Yet while there is indeed a distinction between them, the distinction should not become a polarised dualism. In this regard Bishop O’Donoghue quotes the words of Pope John Paul II to the Bishops of England Wales: “Religious education is broader than catechesis but it must also include catechesis, since a principal goal of the Catholic faith must be to hand on the faith” (page 22).

The Catholic Vision: Based on the Holy Trinity

The ultimate reason for the unity of what we hand on is found in what God has said about Himself in Divine Revelation. As Bishop O’Donoghue writes, “The organic unity of faith flows from the perfect and infinite unity of the Most Holy Trinity. The Catechism is a synthesis of the faith, conveying the ‘melodious symphony of revealed truth’ that originates from God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (page 25).
In the Trinity, there is the most profound unity of Truth and Love, of Knowledge and of Life. At the heart of the celebration of Baptism and of Confirmation is a profession of Faith in the Persons of the Trinity. Indeed the Church’s whole mission and life is one of leading humanity to communion with the Trinity, a communion that indeed reaches into our subjectivity, but which at the same time heals us and enlightens us and leads us to receive that which we could never attain by ourselves - a share in God’s own life, in the immense glory of eternal life in the resurrected body of Jesus Christ. This is the true vision of the Church of the fnal meaning of human life, something that could and should be presented to young people as fundamental to their spiritual lives and indeed to every aspect of their lives. Human life is called as an entirety to be drawn into intimate union with the Trinity here and now, and in this way be transformed.

This is a far more beautiful vision than the limited ideology of Our Faith Story. It is not based upon one man’s personal insight - his subjectivity - but on the real Life and Faith of the Church which is the handing on to each person of real transforming and divine life in Christ. This is the very reason why the CES should exist at all. It gives a real solidity to the spiritual life and if articulated well it can give a radical alternative to the secularism and relativism so prevalent in British culture today.

For an alternative is needed, a real answer, a Truth that fulfils the human heart and transforms it, and does not just abandon it to its subjectivity or even a collective subjectivity. Subjectivity needs interpreting, it needs correcting and it needs teaching. God has given the answer: it is called Revelation and it is handed on in fullness by the Catholic Church.

Bishop O’Donoghue’s programme should therefore be welcomed loudly and clearly by every Catholic in our country. The Tablet claims to be “the International Catholic Weekly” but shows little in its editorial utterances and its editorial silence to show that it is indeed Catholic. The CES claims that it is “promoting and supporting Catholic education in England and Wales.” But there is nothing on its website or public pronouncements to show that it even has an interest in, let alone support of, Lancaster Diocese’s attempt.

For how many more decades will the silence of those who should be speaking continue?