Who is Accommodating to What?

Within the article of faith that it will, in some earthly dimension, survive, I doubt whether one can exaggerate the trouble the Church is in. That is, of course, an a priori judgment: the mounting evidence of disarray, however dispiriting, could not in itself warrant historical pessimism in the light of the Church’s demonstrated capacity for digging herself into and out of bigger messes than any that have brought empires down. What is different about the current disorders is that they are unattended by assurances that their perpetrators conceive Christianity as a giver of norms for judging the secular realm, rather than the other way around. What justifies alarm is the widespread willingness in the Church (eagerness is the word, of course, for the avant garde) to consult mirrors arranged by Christianity’s enemies, so defined both by history and theology.

Pope Paul’s first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, was plainly addressed to this, the most fundamental of disorders. But where it was not denounced as retrograde, the encyclical seems to have been dismissed as a venture in triviality. Why? There is much that is spineless in the uncritical embrace of aggiornamento, a recognizable tolerance for intimidation. Above all, however, the new enthusiasms have revealed an other-directedness in the bosom of the Church—a longing to be free of itself, to be liberated from the constraints imposed by a specifically Christian apostolate. In other ages, the heart of the Church, for all of its worldly distractions, was content with saving souls, an opportunity regarded as infinitely rich and expanding, notwithstanding that the means were understood to be static: the teaching of its own Truth, and providing conduits of Grace. Today the Church feels drawn to broader and more exciting horizons. Where these horizons lie, the innovators candidly profess not to know. But neither, it seems to me, have they paused to ponder whence the beckons come.

LB

About the Author

L. Brent Bozell Jr.

Featured Tags

Within the article of faith that it will, in some earthly dimension, survive, I doubt whether one can exaggerate the trouble the Church is in. That is, of course, an a priori judgment: the mounting evidence of disarray, however dispiriting, could not in itself warrant historical pessimism in the light of the Church’s demonstrated capacity for digging herself into and out of bigger messes than any that have brought empires down. What is different about the current disorders is that they are unattended by assurances that their perpetrators conceive Christianity as a giver of norms for judging the secular realm, rather than the other way around. What justifies alarm is the widespread willingness in the Church (eagerness is the word, of course, for the avant garde) to consult mirrors arranged by Christianity’s enemies, so defined both by history and theology.

Pope Paul’s first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, was plainly addressed to this, the most fundamental of disorders. But where it was not denounced as retrograde, the encyclical seems to have been dismissed as a venture in triviality. Why? There is much that is spineless in the uncritical embrace of aggiornamento, a recognizable tolerance for intimidation. Above all, however, the new enthusiasms have revealed an other-directedness in the bosom of the Church—a longing to be free of itself, to be liberated from the constraints imposed by a specifically Christian apostolate. In other ages, the heart of the Church, for all of its worldly distractions, was content with saving souls, an opportunity regarded as infinitely rich and expanding, notwithstanding that the means were understood to be static: the teaching of its own Truth, and providing conduits of Grace. Today the Church feels drawn to broader and more exciting horizons. Where these horizons lie, the innovators candidly profess not to know. But neither, it seems to me, have they paused to ponder whence the beckons come.