That was my exact thought upon reading the headline. The entire article reads like something I'd expect a Protestant to have always said about the organization of the Catholic church.
That was my exact thought upon reading the headline.
The entire article reads like something I'd expect a Protestant to have always said about the organization of the Catholic church.
Absolutely. When I began reading, I thought that this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Further in the article, as he explained his past a little more of his background (first a Catholic...
Absolutely. When I began reading, I thought that this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Further in the article, as he explained his past a little more of his background (first a Catholic Priest, then a columnist, etc) I felt he had a much stronger background for discussing this topic than I initially assessed.
That said, I think he makes a lot of blanket statements without proper evidence. For example, see this quote.
Now, with children as victims and witnesses both, the corruption of priestly dominance has been shown for the evil that it is. Clericalism explains both how the sexual-abuse crisis could happen and how it could be covered up for so long. If the structure of clericalism is not dismantled, the Roman Catholic Church will not survive, and will not deserve to.
To say that the very concept of Catholic priesthood inherently and inevitably creates an environment that supports sexual abusers is just nonsensical. To me, his argument seems to be "In order for the Catholic Church to be successful and morally driven, they have to become something that is no longer the Catholic Church." I've gotta say, I agree with you and /u/svenkatesh in that it sounds like he wants the Catholic Church to become Protestant.
Seems more like he's talking about putting some of the ignored goals of Vatican II into practice. The casting of Protestantism as being entirely about opposition to corruption in the Catholic...
Seems more like he's talking about putting some of the ignored goals of Vatican II into practice.
Vatican II advanced numerous reforms of liturgy and theology, ranging from the jettisoning of the Latin Mass to the post-Holocaust affirmation of the integrity of Judaism. Decisively, the council defined the Church as the “People of God,” and located the clerical hierarchy within the community as servants, not above it as rulers. The declaration, though it would turn out to have little practical consequence for the clergy, was symbolized by liturgical reform that brought the altar down from on high, into the midst of the congregation.
The casting of Protestantism as being entirely about opposition to corruption in the Catholic Church is partly a Lutheran telling of history. There was a lot more political reality to it and it included a lot of princes who weren't well connected with the clergy having an excuse to break from it.
I'm not a theologian, or even a Christian really, but as I understand it Protestants also have a lot of basic theological differences with Catholics beyond just the existence of a clergy, and while many of them are progressive and humanistic many others were pretty retrograde. Protestants are pretty fundamentalist about the inerrancy of the Bible and insist it is the only source of knowledge of God. Catholics revere the Bible, but also consider Church traditions and culture as part of their spiritual understanding, including the presence of saints.
There's also a bunch of differences in how they view the nature of grace, salvation, and communion that I only vaguely understand.
So basically, you can go the anarchist route of wanting to dismantle the Church's organizing structure without actually agreeing with much else that is standard Protestant belief. Catholicism has holy orders, monastic schools, a tradition of mysticism, and various traditions and rituals that Protestans tend to think of as the devil's work.
It is by the rejection of the Catholic Church, its organizing structure, value of the church fathers, etc. that many of the difference between the two became manifest. You kind of hint at that...
I'm not a theologian, or even a Christian really, but as I understand it Protestants also have a lot of basic theological differences with Catholics beyond just the existence of a clergy, and while many of them are progressive and humanistic many others were pretty retrograde.
It is by the rejection of the Catholic Church, its organizing structure, value of the church fathers, etc. that many of the difference between the two became manifest. You kind of hint at that point in the later part of the your paragraph here:
Protestants are pretty fundamentalist about the inerrancy of the Bible and insist it is the only source of knowledge of God. Catholics revere the Bible, but also consider Church traditions and culture as part of their spiritual understanding, including the presence of saints.
If you reject much of the church traditions and culture, you really only have the Bible to stand on (Sola Scriptura).
No, you could also establish a separate or parallel set of church traditions and culture the way the Anglican Church did. Henry VIII was still big on the Church's doctrine and traditions and...
If you reject much of the church traditions and culture, you really only have the Bible to stand on (Sola Scriptura).
No, you could also establish a separate or parallel set of church traditions and culture the way the Anglican Church did. Henry VIII was still big on the Church's doctrine and traditions and literally just wanted to break from the authority of its clergy.
Many Catholics view Biblical literalism and fixation on the Bible alone as a form of idolatry, believing it prioritizes the book and its contents over actual spiritual connection. That wouldn't go away just because the priesthood did. Even Presbyterians kind of get this since they established a sort of "Eldership" governance structure instead.
Speaking as a Hindu, the traditions and culture are numerous and extremely diverse, but are all still part of a single religious identity. There is just a framework for continuous reinvention built into the religion. Tradition and orthopraxy--according to the particular rites of your family, caste, village, and patron deity--are actually held in higher regard within some branches of Hinduism than direct scriptural references are. And the guru/family-centric structure of the religion is set up to permit continual renewal of the traditions and culture around the kernels of fundamental truth.
This is much easier said than done, and Anglicanism is still considered a protestant denomination. High Lutheranism tried the same thing, but eventually devolves without an authoritative body to...
No, you could also establish a separate or parallel set of church traditions and culture the way the Anglican Church did. Henry VIII was still big on the Church's doctrine and traditions and literally just wanted to break from the authority of its clergy.
Many Catholics view Biblical literalism and fixation on the Bible alone as a form of idolatry, believing it prioritizes the book and its contents over actual spiritual connection. That wouldn't go away just because the priesthood did.
This is much easier said than done, and Anglicanism is still considered a protestant denomination. High Lutheranism tried the same thing, but eventually devolves without an authoritative body to necessitate the upholding of sacraments.
Speaking as a Hindu, the traditions and culture are numerous and extremely diverse, but are all still part of a single religious identity. There is just a framework for continuous reinvention built into the religion. Tradition and orthopraxy--according to the particular rites of your family, caste, village, and patron deity--are actually held in higher regard within some branches of Hinduism than direct scriptural references are. And the guru/family-centric structure of the religion is set up to permit continual renewal of the traditions and culture around the kernels of fundamental truth.
Catholicism allows this too to a certain degree. The differentiation is that priests cannot stray from the teachings that are fundamental to Catholic teaching and goes against sacraments of the religion. That's why no matter what Catholic church you go to the service can be expected to uphold the sacraments but music, art, mores, etc. can be different.
A former priest that doesn’t seem to understand that priestly and monastic vocations, church tradition, adherence to the sacraments, and papal authority are inseparable to the essence of...
A former priest that doesn’t seem to understand that priestly and monastic vocations, church tradition, adherence to the sacraments, and papal authority are inseparable to the essence of Catholicism. Catholicism/Orthodoxy cannot exist without these elements together because they feed into one another.
Anti-reformists day this any time someone wants anything to change though. Things are fundamental and inseparable until someone comes up with something that works better.
Anti-reformists day this any time someone wants anything to change though. Things are fundamental and inseparable until someone comes up with something that works better.
You can make reformist changes without breaking these things too. The reformists that made these big changes resulted in new denominations. Let those people that want these kind of huge changes go...
You can make reformist changes without breaking these things too. The reformists that made these big changes resulted in new denominations. Let those people that want these kind of huge changes go to those denominations. The Catholic Church shouldn’t have to change so fundamentally like that just to appease people that are better off as Episcopalian, Presbyterian, etc.
I'm not sure the victims of the clergy's culture of secrecy are inherently Episcopalian or Presbyterian so much as abused women and children. This article is written specifically in response to...
The Catholic Church shouldn’t have to change so fundamentally like that just to appease people that are better off as Episcopalian, Presbyterian, etc.
I'm not sure the victims of the clergy's culture of secrecy are inherently Episcopalian or Presbyterian so much as abused women and children. This article is written specifically in response to concerns around predatory priests and whether the spiritual goals of Catholicism are compatible with people who have this kind of unrestricted influence and trust.
They certainly may not be, but that's not whom I refer to as Episcopalian or Presbyterian. It's an average rant against clericalism under the backdrop of the abuse scandal. It's nothing unique or...
I'm not sure the victims of the clergy's culture of secrecy are inherently Episcopalian or Presbyterian so much as abused women and children.
They certainly may not be, but that's not whom I refer to as Episcopalian or Presbyterian. It's an average rant against clericalism under the backdrop of the abuse scandal. It's nothing unique or anything that hasn't been put forward before. His prescriptions for anticlerical Catholics is ignorant of the faith and screams of Moral Therapeutic Deism. Asking of the church to adopt the "ethos of liberal democracy" is an act of forcing liberalism into a religion that provides truth. You can't be surprised if people push back against this notion.
Of course I’m not surprised. But the push back is inchoate. Like this: The Church as it is now basically forces a form of Feudalism + Roman Imperial institutions into a religion that provides...
You can't be surprised if people push back against this notion.
Of course I’m not surprised. But the push back is inchoate. Like this:
Asking of the church to adopt the "ethos of liberal democracy" is an act of forcing liberalism into a religion that provides truth.
The Church as it is now basically forces a form of Feudalism + Roman Imperial institutions into a religion that provides truth. We live on a corporeal plane. You always need some system of governance to manage an institution and such forms of governance are human constructions. And if the institution is leveraging its power and influence to molest kids, that suggests something is broken.
It's nothing unique or anything that hasn't been put forward before.
Most good things aren’t new. They just have to grind away at the badness if the present over and over again. Bringing change is the long, slow, and persistent boring of hard boards. This doesn’t actually comment on what he’s saying.
His prescriptions for anticlerical Catholics is ignorant of the faith
If you define “the faith” as whatever the status quo is that’s not really a satisfactory definition for anything. It doesn’t get into the core of the thing for one.
Inchoate? Do you really believe that 25 word retort is the epitome of formed criticism on the topic? My comment is not at all constitutive of the comprehensive literature written by well-read...
Inchoate? Do you really believe that 25 word retort is the epitome of formed criticism on the topic? My comment is not at all constitutive of the comprehensive literature written by well-read Catholics on this topic. There's 500 years worth of it.
The Church as it is now basically forces a form of Feudalism + Roman Imperial institutions into a religion that provides truth...And if the institution is leveraging its power and influence to molest kids,...
This is an extremely bad faith take on what the Catholic Church actually is.
Most good things aren’t new. They just have to grind away at the badness if the present over and over again. Bringing change is the long, slow, and persistent boring of hard boards. This doesn’t actually comment on what he’s saying.
It actually does, because he believes clericalism to be the sole reason for the sex abuse crisis.
If you define “the faith” as whatever the status quo is that’s not really a satisfactory definition for anything. It doesn’t get into the core of the thing for one.
That is not how I define the faith, nor is it how I have used it in our discussion. That is how you define it. Christ was Prophet, Priest, and King. Munus triplex. The priesthood has thus been a foundation of the faith since the beginning and no amount of revisionist history by James Carrol can deny that. St. Paul, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and many of the early church fathers make this point very clear.
I have to make it clear that I'm not even Catholic, but these kinds of articles are insulting and incredible ignorant of the institution that they criticize. It is another piece in a long line of genre articles about the Catholic church needing to become more Protestant or to "liberalize" if it is to find "the True" form of Christianity, painfully written by people that don't understand the history of the church or the faith itself.
"We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world." - G.K. Chesterton (1943)
All I have to comment on is what you give me man. If you give me inchoate 25 word retorts, that's what the conversation is going to be about. I can't dive into your mind to retrieve whatever...
Inchoate? Do you really believe that 25 word retort is the epitome of formed criticism on the topic?
All I have to comment on is what you give me man. If you give me inchoate 25 word retorts, that's what the conversation is going to be about. I can't dive into your mind to retrieve whatever pearls of wisdom are in there. If you don't want to fish those out I don't see much point in participating in a discussion.
There's 500 years worth of it.
500s years worth of slavery and abuse too so. . .
This is an extremely bad faith take on what the Catholic Church actually is.
How so? The whole structure of the hierarchy is built on ideas about how authority works and flows that are rooted in the late Roman Empire. They also went on to inform much of the political theory of European feudalism. The church was built by people based on their understandings of the best ways to exercise power and delegate authority in the context of times when legal structures and modes of social interaction are different from what they are now. And it hasn't quite kept up with the times.
None of this has much to do with any of the objective truths the Church formally serves to support. And it's extremely revisionist to claim that the priesthood hasn't consistently evolved and changed over time to meet the political and societal conditions it finds itself in. And I'm sure every one of those changes had plenty of people saying "This isn't what the church really is" up until they had a couple of generations to get used to it.
It actually does, because he believes clericalism to be the sole reason for the sex abuse crisis.
With some pretty clear and hard to argue points about how one leads to the other.
That is how you define it.
No, that's how I've defined your defense of it because that's what it sounds like. You just dismissed any criticisms of the status quo as not understanding what "the faith" is, which is basically just a conflation of the two.
The priesthood has thus been a foundation of the faith since the beginning and no amount of revisionist history by James Carrol can deny that. St. Paul, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and many of the early church fathers make this point very clear.
You're telling me the founders of the present system were strong proponents of the system they founded? Or that people operating in the waning days of the Roman Empire might have some fixed ideas about how organization and administration ought to work? This isn't surprising and also doesn't really address any of his criticisms.
It is another piece in a long line of genre articles about the Catholic church needing to become more Protestant or to "liberalize" if it is to find "the True" form of Christianity painfully written by people that don't understand the history of the church or the faith itself.
There you go conflating Protestantism with reform in general again. How can you say stuff like this and then be surprised if all this reads as is reflexive defense of the status quo? You're defining "understanding the history of the church" with defending the status quo of the church again. This is kind of circular reasoning that assumes everything about a thing is inseparable from the essence of the thing which is simply not true. If you cut off my arm I'm still me. Even if you give me a sweet new cyborg arm, I'll still be me. This is because who I am doesn't derive from how my body is constituted.
Yours are no better buddy, and neither do I see any point in recovering any banal idea you have on the subject. Don't play this game. It's unbecoming and pathetic of you. That is because a lot of...
All I have to comment on is what you give me man. If you give me inchoate 25 word retorts, that's what the conversation is going to be about. I can't dive into your mind to retrieve whatever pearls of wisdom are in there. If you don't want to fish those out I don't see much point in participating in a discussion.
Yours are no better buddy, and neither do I see any point in recovering any banal idea you have on the subject.
500s years worth of slavery and abuse too so. . .
Don't play this game. It's unbecoming and pathetic of you.
How so? The whole structure of the hierarchy is built on ideas about how authority works and flows that are rooted in the late Roman Empire. They also went on to inform much of the political theory of European feudalism. The church was built by people based on their understandings of the best ways to exercise power and delegate authority in the context of times when legal structures and modes of social interaction are different from what they are now. And it hasn't quite kept up with the times.
That is because a lot of the structure and such is derived from the New Testament though.
With some pretty clear and hard to argue points about how one leads to the other.
But his prescription is to just remove the priesthood. Clericalism can be reformed without removing the priesthood. Carroll's continual conflation of the two has no support.
You're telling me the founders of the present system were strong proponents of the system they founded?
Of the necessity of the priesthood being central to the holy apostolic church? Yeah. Clericalism as it is such today? Probably not.
This isn't surprising and also doesn't really address any of his criticisms.
He provides no theologically supported conclusion about the removal of the priesthood.
There you go conflating Protestantism with reform in general again. How can you say stuff like this and then be surprised if all this reads as is reflexive defense of the status quo?
Removing the priesthood, as the article suggests, is not reform to something where the priesthood is central to it. How do you not get that? I never suggested that you cannot reform the church, only that reform that negates the structure of the religion and what it espouses isn't reform. Having an understanding of the history of the institution is necessary for any reform. What the author suggests is completely revolutionary and antithetical to the faith. The protestant reformation was more revolutionary than reformative and that is why these articles are likened to it.
If you cut off my arm I'm still me. Even if you give me a sweet new cyborg arm, I'll still be me. This is because who I am doesn't derive from how my body is constituted.
What you, and the article, are suggesting is removing the heart of person and saying they can work just fine without it. The priesthood is not some externality that can be amputated with wanton disregard for the tenants of Catholicism or Christianity for that matter.
This isn't really constructive. I'm mostly covering the article in question and you haven't actually answering anything he's said specifically beyond just glibly asserting that the writer is...
Yours are no better buddy, and neither do I see any point in recovering any banal idea you have on the subject.
This isn't really constructive. I'm mostly covering the article in question and you haven't actually answering anything he's said specifically beyond just glibly asserting that the writer is ignorant.
Don't play this game. It's unbecoming and pathetic of you.
So the Catholic clergy doesn't have a long history of abuse of power behind it then? What exactly is unbecoming here?
That is because a lot of the structure and such is derived from the New Testament though.
"A lot" is doing a great deal of work to obscure what you mean here. What of the structure in particular? How much power of worldly affairs were they supposed to have? How much of these interpretations are based on imputing biases about how powers and titles work from medieval scholars back in time to the apostolic era?
These are people who did paintings of Pontius Pilate in full plate mail and somehow made Jesus blonde after all. Most of the justifications for the level of power the Priesthood have are based on extremely specific readings of the quotations in question. Now maybe the Ancient Greek does support such liberal (as in, broadly supportive) readings, but I have my doubts.
But his prescription is to just remove the priesthood.
This is like pointing to a republican (lower case) and asserting that because they want to abolish formal titles that go with monarchy that must mean they want to abolish the concept of authority altogether. We got rid of kings and dukes and earls, but we still have Presidents and Senators and Mayors.
I never suggested that you cannot reform the church, only that reform that negates the structure of the religion and what it espouses isn't reform. Having an understanding of the history of the institution is necessary for any reform. What the author suggests is completely revolutionary and antithetical to the faith.
You're functionally saying that it can't count as "reform" if it substantively changes anything. If you can't do structural change, you haven't really reformed anything.
He probably doesn't know what a post-clerical Church would look like. How could he if it doesn't exist yet? His whole point is that this is something that will have to be built through trial and error.
He also seems to have a great deal more respect for the background knowledge and reputation of James Carroll than you do, so I'm not sure why you'd be citing him. Most of your criticism of Carroll has been of him being ignorant of what Catholicism is or ignorant of the church while this consistently refers to him as an astute critic and asserts that he "knows his theology" (again, being a former ordained Catholic priest himself).
And I gotta say after the first paragraph he was not off to a strong start with a sentence like It does not take too much creativity to imagine what the reaction might have been had The New Yorker’s literary critic written, “Does anyone, really, like imams?” Yeah, lots of Muslims in Muslim countries will frequently say things like that. This isn't a Catholic thing, educated lay-people tend not to like clergy very much.
But the gist of his disagreement with Carroll comes down to one main thing. Martin thinks there needs to be a stronger distinction drawn between priesthood and clericalism while Carroll thinks the very fact of having a priesthood makes many of the worst aspects of clericalism inevitable. He also ignores most of the thrust of Carroll's argument, focusing on the incidences of abuse rather than what Carroll was talking about which was the circling of wagons around the abusers to ensure justice could never find them.
I have answered everything you have put forth and refuted the assumption that Catholicism without priesthood can still exist. Additionally, I have refuted the idea that Carroll's desire for the...
This isn't really constructive. I'm mostly covering the article in question and you haven't actually answering anything he's said specifically beyond just glibly asserting that the writer is ignorant.
I have answered everything you have put forth and refuted the assumption that Catholicism without priesthood can still exist. Additionally, I have refuted the idea that Carroll's desire for the removal of the priesthood can be seen as reform. Believe what you wish.
So the Catholic clergy doesn't have a long history of abuse of power behind it then? What exactly is unbecoming here?
No, the fact that you brought up something like "500 years of slavery and abuse" as an absurd gotcha rebuttal to something that had nothing to do with the point about the amount of literature refuting Carroll's points was pathetic and unbecoming.
"A lot" is doing a great deal of work to obscure what you mean here. What of the structure in particular? How much power of worldly affairs were they supposed to have? How much of these interpretations are based on imputing biases about how powers and titles work from medieval scholars back in time to the apostolic era?
I apologize if I cannot go into the vast repository of literature of the Church Fathers and Theology for a condensed refutation to appease you. Even if I did, I don't think it would be enough for you.
These are people who did paintings of Pontius Pilate in full plate mail and somehow made Jesus blonde after all.
And? In Eastern Asia, church murals of Christ have him looking Eastern Asian. In India, Kerala in particular, he looks more Indian.
Most of the justifications for the level of power the Priesthood have are based on extremely specific readings of the quotations in question. Now maybe the Ancient Greek does support such liberal (as in, broadly supportive) readings, but I have my doubts.
You shouldn't because reading the Church Fathers and the evidence they have for it should put you at ease.
This is like pointing to a republican (lower case) and asserting that because they want to abolish formal titles that go with monarchy that must mean they want to abolish the concept of authority altogether.
No, its more like removing the Police because they help each other cover their crimes, or abolishing Physicians because of their part in the Opioid epidemic. Do you reform the profession or do you abolish it?
You're functionally saying that it can't count as "reform" if it substantively changes anything. If you can't do structural change, you haven't really reformed anything.
You really don't understand the gravity of the stuff Carroll is saying. Calling the removal of the priesthood as "reform" is naive. It is much more radical. It's like saying the removal of the judicial branch of the US is "reform."
He probably doesn't know what a post-clerical Church would look like. How could he if it doesn't exist yet? His whole point is that this is something that will have to be built through trial and error.
There are many denominations that do just that. He need not look far.
He also seems to have a great deal more respect for the background knowledge and reputation of James Carroll than you do, so I'm not sure why you'd be citing him. Most of your criticism of Carroll has been of him being ignorant of what Catholicism is or ignorant of the church while this consistently refers to him as an astute critic and asserts that he "knows his theology" (again, being a former ordained Catholic priest himself).
So? I need to completely respect the works of authors I disagree with? Fr. Martin is a much better man than I, but I have no qualms with dismissing Carroll's latest piece. Then again, I know that wasn't your point by writing the comment ;-)
And I gotta say after the first paragraph he was not off to a strong start with a sentence like It does not take too much creativity to imagine what the reaction might have been had The New Yorker’s literary critic written, “Does anyone, really, like imams?” Yeah, lots of Muslims in Muslim countries will frequently say things like that. This isn't a Catholic thing, educated lay-people tend not to like clergy very much.
Yeah and lots of smart muslims and catholics I grew up with that like their imams and clergy, respectively. You really believe if the Atlantic put out an article saying "To Save Islam, Abolish Imams" and not have an issue?
But the gist of his disagreement with Carroll comes down to one main thing. Martin thinks there needs to be a stronger distinction drawn between priesthood and clericalism while Carroll thinks the very fact of having a priesthood makes many of the worst aspects of clericalism inevitable. He also ignores most of the thrust of Carroll's argument, focusing on the incidences of abuse rather than what Carroll was talking about which was the circling of wagons around the abusers to ensure justice could never find them.
If cops prevent their friends from getting in trouble, does that require throwing out police, or do you reform it so police can function better? That is the distinction Fr. Martin is making. One that you and Carroll fail to make.
Asserting a thing isn't "refuting" it but ok. Look, the priesthood has presided over slavery and abuse for well over 500 years. What's unbecoming of this point? It informs his thesis about the...
I have answered everything you have put forth and refuted the assumption that Catholicism without priesthood can still exist. Additionally, I have refuted the idea that Carroll's desire for the removal of the priesthood can be seen as reform. Believe what you wish.
Asserting a thing isn't "refuting" it but ok.
No, the fact that you brought up something like "500 years of slavery and abuse" as an absurd gotcha rebuttal to something that had nothing to do with the point about the amount of literature refuting Carroll's points was pathetic and unbecoming.
Look, the priesthood has presided over slavery and abuse for well over 500 years. What's unbecoming of this point? It informs his thesis about the corrupting influence of power/authority. Handwaving it away is a lame attempt at pearl clutching to avoid having to confront uncomfortable truths.
And? In Eastern Asia, church murals of Christ have him looking Eastern Asian. In India, Kerala in particular, he looks more Indian.
So in other words, the source material keeps getting adapted to the cultural mores and biases of the community it's targeted towards, and these interpretations can go both ways, with the community imputing their own ideas onto the source material that may or may not be there. Because of Eurocentrism, the Western imputed biases have been privileged for much of history as the "authoritative" ones, but there is no reason this should be considered objectively true.
Calling the removal of the priesthood as "reform" is naive. It is much more radical. It's like saying the removal of the judicial branch of the US is "reform."
Radical reforms are still reforms. If there's a bug in the system, you gotta adapt the system wherever it is.
No, its more like removing the Police because they help each other cover their crimes, or abolishing Physicians because of their part in the Opioid epidemic. Do you reform the profession or do you abolish it?
This is just getting hung up on labels in lieu of the things they're referring to. If you abolish the formal "police" it's not as if communities just stop enforcing laws. People will just come up with other ways to enforce the law or care for the sick.
There are many denominations that do just that. He need not look far.
Maybe he doesn't like them. Most of the Protestant denominations have their own layers of traditions and legacies that they're bogged down by. And many of the most "democratic" ones are charismatic churches which he, presumably, has other theological issues with. I see no indication that he dislikes the institution of the Church, he just doesn't like the position of authority that the clergy within it maintain for themselves.
Fr. Martin is a much better man than I, but I have no qualms with dismissing Carroll's latest piece.
It's not about dismissal, it's about your assertion that Carroll is ignorant on the subject while the guy you're linking me to asserts the opposite. Since he's more of an authority on
You really believe if the Atlantic put out an article saying "To Save Islam, Abolish Imams" and not have an issue?
If The Atlantic did there would be an issue because The Atlantic isn't speaking from an internal perspective when it comments on Islam. If a Turkish magazine published one it would be less so, and most of the detractors would be Islamist fascists rather than people with theological concerns.
But it wouldn't even make as much sense, because Islam doesn't even have a clergy in the same sense. Iranians are probably the only ones who do, and even that's not as consolidated or well regarded as the Church is. This is willfully extrapolating from a clickbait headline to avoid dealing with the thrust of the article.
If cops prevent their friends from getting in trouble, does that require throwing out police, or do you reform it so police can function better?
Lots of leftists will argue that we should. Fundamentally reforming the deeply rooted problems with American policing would involve changing it so fundamentally that what comes out the other side isn't going to look anything like what was there before. Whether you want to call that "abolition" or "reform" is largely semantics or niggling over how long it should take.
If you think that everything I have written has only been assertions, then I don't know what to tell you, friend. It wasn't that though. Handwaving the fact that you made a glib retort based on...
Asserting a thing isn't "refuting" it but ok.
If you think that everything I have written has only been assertions, then I don't know what to tell you, friend.
Look, the priesthood has presided over slavery and abuse for well over 500 years. What's unbecoming of this point? It informs his thesis about the corrupting influence of power/authority. Handwaving it away is a lame attempt at pearl clutching to avoid having to confront uncomfortable truths.
It wasn't that though. Handwaving the fact that you made a glib retort based on something that had nothing to do with what I had written as a gottcha and then backpeddling to say its ok because it informs the thesis is pathetic. The jump from me writing "500 years of literature" about a topic to you writing "More like 500 years of slavery and abuse, amirite?" is pretty shallow.
So in other words, the source material keeps getting adapted to the cultural mores and biases of the community it's targeted towards, and these interpretations can go both ways, with the community imputing their own ideas onto the source material that may or may not be there. Because of Eurocentrism, the Western imputed biases have been privileged for much of history as the "authoritative" ones, but there is no reason this should be considered objectively true.
But all those communities cannot stray from what makes it Catholicism. They cannot change the sacraments or the structure! The Eucharist is the Eucharist no matter where you take communion, confession is confession no matter where you confess, etc. Whether the art can be influenced by a local culture is one thing, but the hierarchy and sacraments are biblical. Eurocentrism did influence Catholicism, but the priesthood and it's hierarchy is not from that. St. Ignatius' (Syrian!) work reveals that the idea of the priesthood was around well before the Europe that you believe influenced the religion. This framing also denies that many Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches have nearly the same ideas of the priesthood without European influence.
Radical reforms are still reforms. If there's a bug in the system, you gotta adapt the system wherever it is.
At one point, a reform makes it another system. The jump from Monarchy to Republic was not reform, it was a system change. Removing the priesthood would be a system change. It would make Catholicism into Not Catholicism.
This is just getting hung up on labels in lieu of the things they're referring to. If you abolish the formal "police" it's not as if communities just stop enforcing laws. People will just come up with other ways to enforce the law or care for the sick.
It really isn't. Those people could just reform the police and save themselves the hassle of needing to self-police communities.
Maybe he doesn't like them. Most of the Protestant denominations have their own layers of traditions and legacies that they're bogged down by. And many of the most "democratic" ones are charismatic churches which he, presumably, has other theological issues with. I see no indication that he dislikes the institution of the Church, he just doesn't like the position of authority that the clergy within it maintain for themselves.
Additionally, I don't think you realize that many of those Protestant denomination's theological differences came about when they began stripping theological premises and sacraments from Catholicism. Sola Scriptura came about exactly from that. Something needed to be done to make things theologically sound. There is a reason you find things like biblical literalism from Evangelicalism and not Catholicism.
This also doesn't get to the point that nothing prevents him from doing the things he wants by creating his own denomination.
It's not about dismissal, it's about your assertion that Carroll is ignorant on the subject while the guy you're linking me to asserts the opposite. Since he's more of an authority on
People can have different opinions on a person's knowledge of a subject, friend. It surly isn't nice of me that's all. Whether Fr. Martin believes that is fine. I'm sure there are many priests that think the opposite of Carroll's knowledge of the subject.
If The Atlantic did there would be an issue because The Atlantic isn't speaking from an internal perspective when it comments on Islam. If a Turkish magazine published one it would be less so, and most of the detractors would be Islamist fascists rather than people with theological concerns.
How is the Atlantic's speaking from an internal perspective on Catholicism? Just because Carroll was a former priest? You don't think there is a former Imam or sheikh that could write something similar?
But it wouldn't even make as much sense, because Islam doesn't even have a clergy in the same sense. Iranians are probably the only ones who do, and even that's not as consolidated or well regarded as the Church is. This is willfully extrapolating from a clickbait headline to avoid dealing with the thrust of the article.
Not in the same sense of course, but sheikhs where I come from have considerable influence on the mosque they lead every Friday. Does Islam really have no problems at which a critique is necessary? Because where I am from, it does have its systemic issues. This is where the double standard Fr. Martin discuss pops up.
Lots of leftists will argue that we should.
And no one, even leftists themselves, believe they are reformers.
Fundamentally reforming the deeply rooted problems with American policing would involve changing it so fundamentally that what comes out the other side isn't going to look anything like what was there before. Whether you want to call that "abolition" or "reform" is largely semantics or niggling over how long it should take.
But there would still be police! That is what Fr. Martin is saying! Reforming clericalism is one thing, but abolishing the priesthood is another!
Isn't this basically describing Protestantism?
That was my exact thought upon reading the headline.
The entire article reads like something I'd expect a Protestant to have always said about the organization of the Catholic church.
Absolutely. When I began reading, I thought that this guy didn't know what he was talking about. Further in the article, as he explained his past a little more of his background (first a Catholic Priest, then a columnist, etc) I felt he had a much stronger background for discussing this topic than I initially assessed.
That said, I think he makes a lot of blanket statements without proper evidence. For example, see this quote.
To say that the very concept of Catholic priesthood inherently and inevitably creates an environment that supports sexual abusers is just nonsensical. To me, his argument seems to be "In order for the Catholic Church to be successful and morally driven, they have to become something that is no longer the Catholic Church." I've gotta say, I agree with you and /u/svenkatesh in that it sounds like he wants the Catholic Church to become Protestant.
Seems more like he's talking about putting some of the ignored goals of Vatican II into practice.
The casting of Protestantism as being entirely about opposition to corruption in the Catholic Church is partly a Lutheran telling of history. There was a lot more political reality to it and it included a lot of princes who weren't well connected with the clergy having an excuse to break from it.
I'm not a theologian, or even a Christian really, but as I understand it Protestants also have a lot of basic theological differences with Catholics beyond just the existence of a clergy, and while many of them are progressive and humanistic many others were pretty retrograde. Protestants are pretty fundamentalist about the inerrancy of the Bible and insist it is the only source of knowledge of God. Catholics revere the Bible, but also consider Church traditions and culture as part of their spiritual understanding, including the presence of saints.
There's also a bunch of differences in how they view the nature of grace, salvation, and communion that I only vaguely understand.
So basically, you can go the anarchist route of wanting to dismantle the Church's organizing structure without actually agreeing with much else that is standard Protestant belief. Catholicism has holy orders, monastic schools, a tradition of mysticism, and various traditions and rituals that Protestans tend to think of as the devil's work.
It is by the rejection of the Catholic Church, its organizing structure, value of the church fathers, etc. that many of the difference between the two became manifest. You kind of hint at that point in the later part of the your paragraph here:
If you reject much of the church traditions and culture, you really only have the Bible to stand on (Sola Scriptura).
No, you could also establish a separate or parallel set of church traditions and culture the way the Anglican Church did. Henry VIII was still big on the Church's doctrine and traditions and literally just wanted to break from the authority of its clergy.
Many Catholics view Biblical literalism and fixation on the Bible alone as a form of idolatry, believing it prioritizes the book and its contents over actual spiritual connection. That wouldn't go away just because the priesthood did. Even Presbyterians kind of get this since they established a sort of "Eldership" governance structure instead.
Speaking as a Hindu, the traditions and culture are numerous and extremely diverse, but are all still part of a single religious identity. There is just a framework for continuous reinvention built into the religion. Tradition and orthopraxy--according to the particular rites of your family, caste, village, and patron deity--are actually held in higher regard within some branches of Hinduism than direct scriptural references are. And the guru/family-centric structure of the religion is set up to permit continual renewal of the traditions and culture around the kernels of fundamental truth.
This is much easier said than done, and Anglicanism is still considered a protestant denomination. High Lutheranism tried the same thing, but eventually devolves without an authoritative body to necessitate the upholding of sacraments.
Catholicism allows this too to a certain degree. The differentiation is that priests cannot stray from the teachings that are fundamental to Catholic teaching and goes against sacraments of the religion. That's why no matter what Catholic church you go to the service can be expected to uphold the sacraments but music, art, mores, etc. can be different.
For sure. But I don’t think James Carroll is under any illusions about how hard it would be. He’s a former priest himself after all.
A former priest that doesn’t seem to understand that priestly and monastic vocations, church tradition, adherence to the sacraments, and papal authority are inseparable to the essence of Catholicism. Catholicism/Orthodoxy cannot exist without these elements together because they feed into one another.
Anti-reformists day this any time someone wants anything to change though. Things are fundamental and inseparable until someone comes up with something that works better.
You can make reformist changes without breaking these things too. The reformists that made these big changes resulted in new denominations. Let those people that want these kind of huge changes go to those denominations. The Catholic Church shouldn’t have to change so fundamentally like that just to appease people that are better off as Episcopalian, Presbyterian, etc.
I'm not sure the victims of the clergy's culture of secrecy are inherently Episcopalian or Presbyterian so much as abused women and children. This article is written specifically in response to concerns around predatory priests and whether the spiritual goals of Catholicism are compatible with people who have this kind of unrestricted influence and trust.
They certainly may not be, but that's not whom I refer to as Episcopalian or Presbyterian. It's an average rant against clericalism under the backdrop of the abuse scandal. It's nothing unique or anything that hasn't been put forward before. His prescriptions for anticlerical Catholics is ignorant of the faith and screams of Moral Therapeutic Deism. Asking of the church to adopt the "ethos of liberal democracy" is an act of forcing liberalism into a religion that provides truth. You can't be surprised if people push back against this notion.
Of course I’m not surprised. But the push back is inchoate. Like this:
The Church as it is now basically forces a form of Feudalism + Roman Imperial institutions into a religion that provides truth. We live on a corporeal plane. You always need some system of governance to manage an institution and such forms of governance are human constructions. And if the institution is leveraging its power and influence to molest kids, that suggests something is broken.
Most good things aren’t new. They just have to grind away at the badness if the present over and over again. Bringing change is the long, slow, and persistent boring of hard boards. This doesn’t actually comment on what he’s saying.
If you define “the faith” as whatever the status quo is that’s not really a satisfactory definition for anything. It doesn’t get into the core of the thing for one.
Inchoate? Do you really believe that 25 word retort is the epitome of formed criticism on the topic? My comment is not at all constitutive of the comprehensive literature written by well-read Catholics on this topic. There's 500 years worth of it.
This is an extremely bad faith take on what the Catholic Church actually is.
It actually does, because he believes clericalism to be the sole reason for the sex abuse crisis.
That is not how I define the faith, nor is it how I have used it in our discussion. That is how you define it. Christ was Prophet, Priest, and King. Munus triplex. The priesthood has thus been a foundation of the faith since the beginning and no amount of revisionist history by James Carrol can deny that. St. Paul, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and many of the early church fathers make this point very clear.
I have to make it clear that I'm not even Catholic, but these kinds of articles are insulting and incredible ignorant of the institution that they criticize. It is another piece in a long line of genre articles about the Catholic church needing to become more Protestant or to "liberalize" if it is to find "the True" form of Christianity, painfully written by people that don't understand the history of the church or the faith itself.
"We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world." - G.K. Chesterton (1943)
All I have to comment on is what you give me man. If you give me inchoate 25 word retorts, that's what the conversation is going to be about. I can't dive into your mind to retrieve whatever pearls of wisdom are in there. If you don't want to fish those out I don't see much point in participating in a discussion.
500s years worth of slavery and abuse too so. . .
How so? The whole structure of the hierarchy is built on ideas about how authority works and flows that are rooted in the late Roman Empire. They also went on to inform much of the political theory of European feudalism. The church was built by people based on their understandings of the best ways to exercise power and delegate authority in the context of times when legal structures and modes of social interaction are different from what they are now. And it hasn't quite kept up with the times.
None of this has much to do with any of the objective truths the Church formally serves to support. And it's extremely revisionist to claim that the priesthood hasn't consistently evolved and changed over time to meet the political and societal conditions it finds itself in. And I'm sure every one of those changes had plenty of people saying "This isn't what the church really is" up until they had a couple of generations to get used to it.
With some pretty clear and hard to argue points about how one leads to the other.
No, that's how I've defined your defense of it because that's what it sounds like. You just dismissed any criticisms of the status quo as not understanding what "the faith" is, which is basically just a conflation of the two.
You're telling me the founders of the present system were strong proponents of the system they founded? Or that people operating in the waning days of the Roman Empire might have some fixed ideas about how organization and administration ought to work? This isn't surprising and also doesn't really address any of his criticisms.
There you go conflating Protestantism with reform in general again. How can you say stuff like this and then be surprised if all this reads as is reflexive defense of the status quo? You're defining "understanding the history of the church" with defending the status quo of the church again. This is kind of circular reasoning that assumes everything about a thing is inseparable from the essence of the thing which is simply not true. If you cut off my arm I'm still me. Even if you give me a sweet new cyborg arm, I'll still be me. This is because who I am doesn't derive from how my body is constituted.
Yours are no better buddy, and neither do I see any point in recovering any banal idea you have on the subject.
Don't play this game. It's unbecoming and pathetic of you.
That is because a lot of the structure and such is derived from the New Testament though.
But his prescription is to just remove the priesthood. Clericalism can be reformed without removing the priesthood. Carroll's continual conflation of the two has no support.
Of the necessity of the priesthood being central to the holy apostolic church? Yeah. Clericalism as it is such today? Probably not.
He provides no theologically supported conclusion about the removal of the priesthood.
Removing the priesthood, as the article suggests, is not reform to something where the priesthood is central to it. How do you not get that? I never suggested that you cannot reform the church, only that reform that negates the structure of the religion and what it espouses isn't reform. Having an understanding of the history of the institution is necessary for any reform. What the author suggests is completely revolutionary and antithetical to the faith. The protestant reformation was more revolutionary than reformative and that is why these articles are likened to it.
What you, and the article, are suggesting is removing the heart of person and saying they can work just fine without it. The priesthood is not some externality that can be amputated with wanton disregard for the tenants of Catholicism or Christianity for that matter.
Fr. Martin's take on it is good: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/05/17/case-against-abolishing-priesthood
This isn't really constructive. I'm mostly covering the article in question and you haven't actually answering anything he's said specifically beyond just glibly asserting that the writer is ignorant.
So the Catholic clergy doesn't have a long history of abuse of power behind it then? What exactly is unbecoming here?
"A lot" is doing a great deal of work to obscure what you mean here. What of the structure in particular? How much power of worldly affairs were they supposed to have? How much of these interpretations are based on imputing biases about how powers and titles work from medieval scholars back in time to the apostolic era?
These are people who did paintings of Pontius Pilate in full plate mail and somehow made Jesus blonde after all. Most of the justifications for the level of power the Priesthood have are based on extremely specific readings of the quotations in question. Now maybe the Ancient Greek does support such liberal (as in, broadly supportive) readings, but I have my doubts.
This is like pointing to a republican (lower case) and asserting that because they want to abolish formal titles that go with monarchy that must mean they want to abolish the concept of authority altogether. We got rid of kings and dukes and earls, but we still have Presidents and Senators and Mayors.
You're functionally saying that it can't count as "reform" if it substantively changes anything. If you can't do structural change, you haven't really reformed anything.
He probably doesn't know what a post-clerical Church would look like. How could he if it doesn't exist yet? His whole point is that this is something that will have to be built through trial and error.
He also seems to have a great deal more respect for the background knowledge and reputation of James Carroll than you do, so I'm not sure why you'd be citing him. Most of your criticism of Carroll has been of him being ignorant of what Catholicism is or ignorant of the church while this consistently refers to him as an astute critic and asserts that he "knows his theology" (again, being a former ordained Catholic priest himself).
And I gotta say after the first paragraph he was not off to a strong start with a sentence like It does not take too much creativity to imagine what the reaction might have been had The New Yorker’s literary critic written, “Does anyone, really, like imams?” Yeah, lots of Muslims in Muslim countries will frequently say things like that. This isn't a Catholic thing, educated lay-people tend not to like clergy very much.
But the gist of his disagreement with Carroll comes down to one main thing. Martin thinks there needs to be a stronger distinction drawn between priesthood and clericalism while Carroll thinks the very fact of having a priesthood makes many of the worst aspects of clericalism inevitable. He also ignores most of the thrust of Carroll's argument, focusing on the incidences of abuse rather than what Carroll was talking about which was the circling of wagons around the abusers to ensure justice could never find them.
I have answered everything you have put forth and refuted the assumption that Catholicism without priesthood can still exist. Additionally, I have refuted the idea that Carroll's desire for the removal of the priesthood can be seen as reform. Believe what you wish.
No, the fact that you brought up something like "500 years of slavery and abuse" as an absurd gotcha rebuttal to something that had nothing to do with the point about the amount of literature refuting Carroll's points was pathetic and unbecoming.
I apologize if I cannot go into the vast repository of literature of the Church Fathers and Theology for a condensed refutation to appease you. Even if I did, I don't think it would be enough for you.
And? In Eastern Asia, church murals of Christ have him looking Eastern Asian. In India, Kerala in particular, he looks more Indian.
You shouldn't because reading the Church Fathers and the evidence they have for it should put you at ease.
No, its more like removing the Police because they help each other cover their crimes, or abolishing Physicians because of their part in the Opioid epidemic. Do you reform the profession or do you abolish it?
You really don't understand the gravity of the stuff Carroll is saying. Calling the removal of the priesthood as "reform" is naive. It is much more radical. It's like saying the removal of the judicial branch of the US is "reform."
There are many denominations that do just that. He need not look far.
So? I need to completely respect the works of authors I disagree with? Fr. Martin is a much better man than I, but I have no qualms with dismissing Carroll's latest piece. Then again, I know that wasn't your point by writing the comment ;-)
Yeah and lots of smart muslims and catholics I grew up with that like their imams and clergy, respectively. You really believe if the Atlantic put out an article saying "To Save Islam, Abolish Imams" and not have an issue?
If cops prevent their friends from getting in trouble, does that require throwing out police, or do you reform it so police can function better? That is the distinction Fr. Martin is making. One that you and Carroll fail to make.
Asserting a thing isn't "refuting" it but ok.
Look, the priesthood has presided over slavery and abuse for well over 500 years. What's unbecoming of this point? It informs his thesis about the corrupting influence of power/authority. Handwaving it away is a lame attempt at pearl clutching to avoid having to confront uncomfortable truths.
So in other words, the source material keeps getting adapted to the cultural mores and biases of the community it's targeted towards, and these interpretations can go both ways, with the community imputing their own ideas onto the source material that may or may not be there. Because of Eurocentrism, the Western imputed biases have been privileged for much of history as the "authoritative" ones, but there is no reason this should be considered objectively true.
Radical reforms are still reforms. If there's a bug in the system, you gotta adapt the system wherever it is.
This is just getting hung up on labels in lieu of the things they're referring to. If you abolish the formal "police" it's not as if communities just stop enforcing laws. People will just come up with other ways to enforce the law or care for the sick.
Maybe he doesn't like them. Most of the Protestant denominations have their own layers of traditions and legacies that they're bogged down by. And many of the most "democratic" ones are charismatic churches which he, presumably, has other theological issues with. I see no indication that he dislikes the institution of the Church, he just doesn't like the position of authority that the clergy within it maintain for themselves.
It's not about dismissal, it's about your assertion that Carroll is ignorant on the subject while the guy you're linking me to asserts the opposite. Since he's more of an authority on
If The Atlantic did there would be an issue because The Atlantic isn't speaking from an internal perspective when it comments on Islam. If a Turkish magazine published one it would be less so, and most of the detractors would be Islamist fascists rather than people with theological concerns.
But it wouldn't even make as much sense, because Islam doesn't even have a clergy in the same sense. Iranians are probably the only ones who do, and even that's not as consolidated or well regarded as the Church is. This is willfully extrapolating from a clickbait headline to avoid dealing with the thrust of the article.
Lots of leftists will argue that we should. Fundamentally reforming the deeply rooted problems with American policing would involve changing it so fundamentally that what comes out the other side isn't going to look anything like what was there before. Whether you want to call that "abolition" or "reform" is largely semantics or niggling over how long it should take.
If you think that everything I have written has only been assertions, then I don't know what to tell you, friend.
It wasn't that though. Handwaving the fact that you made a glib retort based on something that had nothing to do with what I had written as a gottcha and then backpeddling to say its ok because it informs the thesis is pathetic. The jump from me writing "500 years of literature" about a topic to you writing "More like 500 years of slavery and abuse, amirite?" is pretty shallow.
But all those communities cannot stray from what makes it Catholicism. They cannot change the sacraments or the structure! The Eucharist is the Eucharist no matter where you take communion, confession is confession no matter where you confess, etc. Whether the art can be influenced by a local culture is one thing, but the hierarchy and sacraments are biblical. Eurocentrism did influence Catholicism, but the priesthood and it's hierarchy is not from that. St. Ignatius' (Syrian!) work reveals that the idea of the priesthood was around well before the Europe that you believe influenced the religion. This framing also denies that many Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches have nearly the same ideas of the priesthood without European influence.
At one point, a reform makes it another system. The jump from Monarchy to Republic was not reform, it was a system change. Removing the priesthood would be a system change. It would make Catholicism into Not Catholicism.
It really isn't. Those people could just reform the police and save themselves the hassle of needing to self-police communities.
But you cannot have the Catholicism without the priesthood.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/james-carrolls-cover-story-wrong-about-catholicism/589987/
Additionally, I don't think you realize that many of those Protestant denomination's theological differences came about when they began stripping theological premises and sacraments from Catholicism. Sola Scriptura came about exactly from that. Something needed to be done to make things theologically sound. There is a reason you find things like biblical literalism from Evangelicalism and not Catholicism.
This also doesn't get to the point that nothing prevents him from doing the things he wants by creating his own denomination.
People can have different opinions on a person's knowledge of a subject, friend. It surly isn't nice of me that's all. Whether Fr. Martin believes that is fine. I'm sure there are many priests that think the opposite of Carroll's knowledge of the subject.
Here is a priest who is more biting in his critique of Carroll and his claims:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/fatherbouck/abolish-the-priesthood-a-young-priest-responds
How is the Atlantic's speaking from an internal perspective on Catholicism? Just because Carroll was a former priest? You don't think there is a former Imam or sheikh that could write something similar?
Not in the same sense of course, but sheikhs where I come from have considerable influence on the mosque they lead every Friday. Does Islam really have no problems at which a critique is necessary? Because where I am from, it does have its systemic issues. This is where the double standard Fr. Martin discuss pops up.
And no one, even leftists themselves, believe they are reformers.
But there would still be police! That is what Fr. Martin is saying! Reforming clericalism is one thing, but abolishing the priesthood is another!
You two can PM each other if you really want to continue this. @NaraVara
Yeah, they should nail a printout of this article to some doors and see how it goes.
Exactly. Not much of a new hot take unless you say 500 years ago was recent lol
This spurred an interesting response, I thought it might be worth sharing here.
"The Case Against Abolishing the Priesthood" by James Martin, J.S.