Not Only a Failed Prophet, But a False One
Nearly a decade ago (January, 1996) theologian Richard McBrien offered a personal peek into "The Future of the Catholic Church: Looking Toward the Third Christian Millennium." It's time to consider how good a prophet Fr. McBrien proved to be in his spirited lecture to a very receptive audience, part of a quasi-official annual event called "Mile Hi Conversations" in Denver. This was a leftover group from a bit earlier, when the Archdiocese of Northern Colorado was, for a brief, but too long, period in the firm grip of the "Spirit of Vatican II" folk, — before they lost the official hospitality of a former Archbishop. They were struggling bravely on as if what they wanted the Catholic Church to be was actually what it was certain to be, probably when Rome would give them official leadership in their own image — that is, an image very much like that of Notre Dame's dauntless modernist, Fr. McBrien.
Time hasn't been kind to either those "Spirit of Vatican II" folk or their Notre Dame guru. The firmest prediction of Fr. McBrien in his Denver exercise in barn burning has been proved exactly 180-degrees wrong. Citing the supposed lesson of history that Popes elected after long reigns by their predecessors were opposites of those they followed, Fr. McBrien predicted the successor to Pope John Paul II would be contrary to him in almost every way, including theology. This idea fit not only his vision of history, but also his conviction that the Church is an evolving, work in progress, so naturally Pope-by-Pope it would leave behind the idea of a perennial theology, one suited to a hierarchical entity, and enter into an age of a populist Church, one egalitarian in both ministry and authority. This envisions a surrender by the Popes and bishops of claims to an official teaching and ruling status, making way for any and all who "speak with conviction," knowing they have "the corporate presence of God in Christ" in themselves, and do not need to "be loyal to leadership of rule" by those holding office or who claim "designated ministry."
What a shock to Fr. McBrien that the candidate most similar to Pope John Paul II in theology, including that surely about the Church's hierarchical nature, was elected to replace him. I imagine that most of those who heard Fr. McBrien in 1996 were equally dismayed with the first Pope chosen by the Holy Spirit in the third millennium.
Had not their guru in Denver assured them that the Holy Spirit is a smasher of images, and that just as surely as the Berlin Wall had come down, there would be trends in the Church not foreseen?
The trends of the Church, Fr. McBrien assured his audience, show the way we're going and "we aren't going back." Well it seems he was right in at least this, the Holy Spirit does deal in surprises, but not always in ones everyone will like. Of course, when he disappoints those waiting for a Church of their own imagination and desire, they predictably say that they only have to wait awhile longer. After all, Fr. McBrien had told them the Holy Spirit smashes stereotypes, and then he went on to proclaim much of the realities of the Church actually to be more stereotypes to be smashed, swept up by the evolutionary dustpan, until a fully charismatic noninstitutional, undifferentiating, nonjurisdictional Church remains.
Let's look further at Fr. McBrien's foresight about that Church-in-the-making, which he calls a "community of the baptized," in which, when there may be conflict, it cannot be presumed "the Holy Spirit is on the side of leadership." (It won't be like poor Richard Nixon, saying, "I am the president," Fr. McBrien explained, to the delight of the audience, who got the message — no need to pay attention to ecclesiastics who might say, "I am the Pope.")
The Church as the stately pleasure dome of Fr. McBrien's vision might have Popes, but since jurisdiction will have little or no value in the future Church, the People of God won't feel the need to look to them for authorization or exercise of authority. Such authority instead will be recognized in all who have been "open to the real authority who is God" (emphasis this columnist's, not Fr. McBrien's). " 'I believe in the Church' does not mean I believe in or am loyal to leadership or rule in the Church, only God is the proper object of faith." Fr. McBrien assured his listeners, undoubtedly comforting many of them in their resistance to much of what the Church has stubbornly taught through the centuries. How does the Notre Dame theologian get around the inconsistency of believing in God but not in the works and teaching of the Church He founded? Why, by insisting that what God intended in the way of Church isn't at all like what has been presented, and still is, as the Church. (At that point in his talk, Fr. McBrien lamely quipped to his audience that St. Catherine of Sienna or St. Paul would likely agree with his view.)
Rather, God intended the Church to be a communion between God and ourselves, a federation of local Churches embracing more than Catholics — rather, embracing with an eventual recognition of each others' ministries, all artificial divisions (of gender, race, class) wiped away, a "less centralized Church, more open to God outside itself." Of course, there would be left no authority to say anything to the contrary.
Fr. McBrien judges the present Church's greatest sin to be injustice, citing in particular "injustice toward ministers, especially women." He sees the ministerial "capacities" of women being marginalized by the Church. This of course is euphemism in place of openly accusing the Church of injustice by not admitting women to the priesthood. He did not deal with (at least in his formal text) the fact Christ did not admit women, even His most estimable mother, to the priesthood, or that it is the Church's judgment that Christ did not intend such to be done.
As Moses saw an all-male priesthood intended by God's covenant with His people, so the Church judges in regard to the new covenant. Fr. McBrien in his presentation based what he foresaw for the Church to be according to the Second Vatican Council's "fresh understandings" of the Church, what the Church would "look like" in the future. But female priesthood most certainly was not part of that conciliar vision. We may conclude, then, it is simply part of the theologian's own predilection for a Church of absolute egalitarianism.
He bolsters his prediction of women priests in his future Church by pointing out the preponderance of women in today's ministries. He foresaw their ordination coming out of necessity, citing the major decline in male priests, something he blames primarily on the requirement for celibacy. He predicted that by 2005 (then almost a decade in the future) the situation would be worse, with 5,000 fewer priests in active service than then. To make his prediction more significant, he "hedges his bet" with a rather nasty innuendo about many of the young men even then showing interest in the priesthood, but for what Fr. McBrien called "the wrong reasons."
He saw these candidates made up of "wrong types" — not necessary "all gays" (emphasis this columnist's) — but with a taste for a revival of the old "triumphalism, clericalism, authoritarianism, lacking sensitivity to women." Having insisted he isn't calling them homosexuals, he adds that they "haven't come to terms with their own sexuality."
This is a deplorable bit of pseudo-psychoanalysis of those who make up a large proportion of today's candidates for the priesthood — conservative youths appreciative of Catholic tradition, including priestly celibacy, and respectful of Catholic authority, including Papal supremacy. That is the real reason Fr. McBrien finds them the "wrong types." They are not open to his vision of a Church brought by inevitable evolutionary process to an abandonment of its structures, its doctrines (especially moral prohibition, such as that, against contraceptive sex, which Fr. McBrien and his progressivist admirers rejected vehemently both before and after Humanae Vitae). The slur about their failure to come to terms "with their sexuality" is an invidious and unworthy bit of intellectual and psychological terrorism against those not appreciative of "spirit of Vatican II" Catholicism, that is, the Xanadu of liberal mythology about the council.
In fact, in trying to give substance to his predicted Church without any institutional substance, in which each person's personal enthusiasms pass as charisms from the Holy Spirit, Fr. McBrien carefully chooses "themes" from Vatican II, avoiding all actual statements by the council that render his new Church invalid and illicit. In this, he is very much like those jurists in the area of our nationhood who pick and choose citations that fit their subjective ideologies, ignoring others — particularly constitutional principles — that are determinative, or should be.
If Fr. McBrien would exit Xanadu's caverns "measureless to man" and look at the council's decrees, rather than offering only his own extrapolations from them (as he admitted to doing in his Denver lecture), he would find his Church of the future invalidated by what the council actually taught. He would find that even those given charisms were subject to the apostles, and that Vatican II recognized the authority of Church leaders to judge any claim to charisms; that the council speaks of incorporation into the Church of those who accept her "entire system" and are joined in Christ "through union with her visible structure." For those people she speaks of being linked to her, or share in her benefits; or are related in various ways to her. The conciliar distinction between "incorporation into the Church, and various relationships with her is obvious, but is overlooked by promoters of an all-inclusive Church regardless of belief or practice, or acceptance of instituted authority.
A full chapter of Lumen Gentium treats the hierarchical structure of the Church, with the "apostolic seed" being passed to others chosen to take part in the apostolic tradition. The collegial nature of the Church's Hierarchy is seen as dependent on union with and recognition of the Pope as "the, foundation of unity." All are obliged to submit to exercises of teaching authority by bishops or the Pope himself. The Pope has the special charism of infallibility in light of his office as successor of Peter. The Roman Pontiff "has full, supreme, and universal power over the Church. And he can always exercise this power freely." Other bishops can only exercise such power "with the consent of the Roman Pontiff."
Though all the baptized laity of the Church are "priestly people," it is "the ministerial priest, by the sacred power he enjoys [who] molds and rules the priestly people."
The Church as Fr. McBrien foresees for as early as the end of this millennium — a Church brought about by disrespect for offices, charisms supplanting instituted authority, of personal choice to believe and to obey as people prefer, of exercise of authority dependent on "collegial" acceptance of it, a Church of constant change at the whim and understandings of those of articulate conviction (such as was sought by past "reformers") — can only come about after a rejection of Vatican II, not through its application.
In a book of mine published in the 1970s (The Divine Epic) I made a prediction that differs from Fr. McBrien's:
"The future does not belong to the new Catholics, neither the new Catholics of our day nor those of those of some future day. The future belongs to the real Catholics. It belongs to those marked by faith and perseverance, by piety and loyalty. The Pope will be where he has always been when the names and works of the most famous of theologians among the new Catholics have passed and been forgotten. The doctrines of the Church, held from the beginning, will be held and treasured when the theories of new Catholics have been footnoted into the annals of error."
And you can ask St. Catherine and St. Paul about that — and in fact every other saint of history — and I am sure get an "Amen" that they would never give to the kind of church which Fr. McBrien predicts is certain to come, a church those heroes of faith would never recognize as Catholic.
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