What Will the Church Look Like in 100 Years (Part Four)

[Please see previous blogs for a fuller context.]

What are some possibilities for new developments within the Catholic Church over the next one hundred years or so?  To answer that question I have focused on the Second Vatican Council and how it opened up new pathways by recovering, re-interpreting, and re-situating past insights into ecclesiology.  Vatican II re-situated the truncated papal ecclesiology from Vatican I and the generally condemnatory anti-modernist stance that shaped the Church in the two centuries prior to Vatican II.  This allows for a broader understanding of shared leadership and a more dialogical stance that can critically engage modern/contemporary ideas and developments.  The Council re-interpreted the severe divide between Catholic and Protestant that arose during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.  This energizes the ecumenical reality of the Church as one Church and raises the question of how to visibly take concrete steps  toward that goal.  Vatican II recovered the first millennium reality of the primacy of baptismal identity for all members of the Church, thereby opening up a call to evangelization and gospel witness by all members of the Church.  This brings me to the fourth and final way the Second Vatican Council looks “back to the future.”  In order to gain a deeper understanding of the Council and how it could shape the Church of the future, we need to re-embrace a willingness to significantly change, by looking back to the first few generations of the Church’s existence, when the Jesus movement rather quickly and surprisingly shifted from a mainly Palestinian Jewish reality to a Hellenistic (Greek and Roman) Gentile (non-Jewish) universal Church.

The success of Barnabus, Paul, and others in bringing the Gospel message to the Gentile communities in various cities of the Roman Empire required talking about the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in new ways.  “Jesus is the Messiah (‘the Christ/Anointed One’)” no longer had clear resonance. “Jesus Christ is Lord,” however, could be understood more immediately in both the Jewish and Gentile culture.  Should we keep the Jewish Scriptures as integral to our Christian Scriptures, and if so, which texts do we use, the Greek Septuagint or Hebrew Masoretic?  The answer becomes “Yes, keep the Jewish Scriptures of the Septuagint as inspired and foundational but arrange the order of the writings differently than the Jewish communities do, in order to reflect the Christian understanding that the fullness of the promises made to Israel are incarnated in Jesus Christ.  [The prophetic books come after the Wisdom literature in the Christian arrangement; the reverse in the Jewish arrangement of the inspired books.] Which Jewish practices and rituals do we make integral to our worship and daily life? None specifically, though the synagogue service, biblical descriptions of Temple worship, and practices of fasting and prayer will have a big impact on shaping the structure of the Eucharist and the Church’s own prayer and penitential practices.  How much of the Greco-Roman culture do we integrate into the heart of the Church?  Nothing specifically decided upon, but as the Church spreads throughout the Mediterranean area, engages in theological disputes, and defines certain doctrinal realities as essential for the unity of the Church within a Greek philosophical and cultural context, it embraces more completely the Greco-Roman cultural reality within its worship and structure.  This is especially true as the Church moves from being a small, occasionally persecuted Church to a tolerated minority Church, and then to the official religion of the empire.

That willingness to significantly re-shape the Church in light of a new culture allowed the Church to become more than another division within Judaism and (potentially) to be planted in all cultures of the world. However, once the Church achieved a certain dominance in the Roman Empire and key doctrinal disputes about the nature of Jesus and the Trinity were closed off by ecumenical councils, the process of inculturation into non-Greco Roman cultures lessened. There are exceptions such as SS. Cyril and Methodius’ work among the Slavic people in the 9^th century and the Jesuit missionary efforts in China in the 17^th century.  But mission work eventually becomes as much about bringing the fruits of western civilization (education, hospitals, care for orphans, etc.) to areas considered underdeveloped or pagan as it was about letting the gospel to take root in new cultural soil. The monumental inculturation that occurred in the earliest Church’s engagement with the Roman empire is never really repeated.  Is that because there is something intrinsic to the Church’s identity and self-definition that can be framed only within that Hellenistic culture?  Or, are further and perhaps equally radical inculturation events necessary for the vitality of the future Church?  The Second Vatican Council can be interpreted as laying the groundwork for the possibility that the Church, as it truly becomes enculturated into the heart of all the cultures of the world, might need to undergo as radical a shift as happened in that earliest inculturation into the Greco-Roman world.  The final question this poses for the future Church then becomes: How far should or can such an inculturation process go, in terms of Church structure, doctrinal language, worship, and daily Christian life?

Using the image of leaven, the Second Vatican Council in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes, #40) reminds us that the Church is to be the leaven within every culture, working from within each culture to help it become the community God intends, pointing that culture and all cultures toward the kingdom of God.  In the same document in the chapter devoted to “The Proper Development of Culture” the Council Fathers state: “But at the same time, the Church, sent to all peoples of every time and place, is not bound exclusively and indissolubly to any race or nation, any particular way of life or any customary way of life recent or ancient. Faithful to her own tradition and at the same time conscious of her universal mission, she can enter into communion with the various civilizations, to their enrichment and the enrichment of the Church herself (#58).”  The Gospel is not something that floats above history and culture but becomes real only within specific cultural and historical contexts.  It is not tied exclusively to any one culture, but it points all cultures to the fullest understanding of humanity and what it means for humanity to come to true salvation.  [An aside: That is why the decision to allow the liturgy to be celebrated in the vernacular language (and so all the languages of the world) and not just Latin, though a baby step toward something new, was a necessary and important development.  Language obviously carries with it significant cultural weight.]

Karl Rahner, one of the most influential theologians of the last century, reflecting on the Second Vatican Council as a whole, is the first to suggest that the Council could be the beginning of a transition as significant and far-reaching as that which occurred in the early Church.  In his interpretation there are only three fundamental theological eras in the Church’s self-understanding.  The first is the Jewish Christianity that arose out of the initial Jesus movement and was quite short-lived.  The second has been the Euro-centered Christianity that arose in its wake and has lasted until now.  The third, just beginning, a self-understanding of the Church as a “world Church,” with all the open questions that entails:  “This, then, is the issue: either the Church sees and recognizes these essential differences of other cultures for which she should become a world Church and with a Pauline boldness draws the necessary consequences from this recognition, or she remains a Western Church and so in the final analysis betrays the meaning of Vatican II.” [See his “Toward a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II” in Theological Studies (December 1979).]  There was a vibrant Jewish diaspora at the time of the Church’s formation and growth.  It was not at all evident that the Church had to adapt so fully to the Greco-Roman culture.  It could have grown and thrived in all communities of that diaspora, adhering much more closely to all the Jewish practices and customs thought to be essential to their covenant with God.  Instead, guided by the Spirit and for the sake of the Gospel, bold decisions are made to let go of circumcision as the sign of the covenant for males.  New canonical books are recognized as inspired.  Greek philosophical and non-biblical language is used to define essential doctrines (for example, the word homoousios, “one in being,” in the Nicene Creed).  Rahner raises the question of what analogous bold decisions might the Spirit of God ask of the Church of the future in order to truly be that “world Church” rather than simply an export of a Church rooted in European culture.

Not all agree with Rahner’s analysis, of course. One of the most prominent disagreements comes from Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Joseph Ratzinger), another of the most important Catholic theologians of the last century.  For Pope Benedict the union of the gospel proclamation and Church life with Hellenistic language and culture is not something that can be undone or extensively re-worked.  For him it is not accidental that the New Testament canonical books are all written in Greek.  It is not accidental that the controlling doctrinal reality is the “Word” (logos) becoming flesh.  God chose to incarnate God’s Word into human history and therefore there is a rationality to the revelation of God that is wedded to the rational worldview of the Greek philosophical tradition.  He lays out his ideas most explicitly in a speech at the University of Regensburg, where he had previously taught. [ See “Faith, Reason and the University Memories and Reflections,” September 2006].  For Pope Benedict the “synthesis of the Greek spirit and Christian spirit” is a permanent characteristic of the Gospel proclamation.

It seems to me that Pope Benedict’s insistence that this union of biblical thought to Greek concepts was not accidental but an action guided by the Spirit of God can be accepted as correct, without denying Rahner’s basic insight.  With the use of the word logos, there was a fortuitous ability to connect the Hebrew understanding of a “Word made flesh” to the Greek understanding of a guiding principle of reason at work in all creation.  And the Greco-Roman inspired insistence that faith and reason are not opposed but partners in understanding the mystery of God’s revelation revealed in Jesus Christ guided the Church through very difficult waters and key doctrinal developments.  What does it mean that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine? That God is one God but three Persons?  That obedience to the will of God will never justify something that is contradictory to true reason? And much more.  A fuller understanding of revelation definitely occurred, by becoming intertwined intimately with Greco-Roman culture.  To believe it was Spirit-led, even necessary and in some way definitive for the growth of the Church’s faith is one thing.  It will not be set aside or undone.  However, let us be careful in thinking we can limit the Spirit of God at work in other cultural settings.  The fact that the “Word became flesh,” became incarnated fully into human history in a very specific time and place, and that time and place did not limit how the Spirit guided the Church to bring the gospel to a very different (Hellenistic) culture suggests that we should be open to further cultural syntheses.  Therefore, it is an open question of how far the inculturation process still has to go, and thus Rahner’s insight.  Was Vatican II a Spirit-guided, nascent opening to a less European-centered and more world Church?  If so, how should we embrace that opening more fully? And what will that do to how the Church proclaims and lives the core Gospel message (which never changes)?

An openness to discerning where the Spirit of God might lead the Church as it views itself not as a Greco-Roman cultural reality but a true world Church, planted in other equally rich and ancient cultural traditions, does not mean losing the core gospel proclamation or any of the doctrinal milestones that were achieved in that second, Hellenistic phase of Church history.  The core gospel proclamation remains: “In Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One/Messiah, our Lord and Savior, through his life, death and resurrection the reign of God has broken into human history in an unsurpassable way; in him all humanity can find salvation, and we are witnesses to that.”  The ecumenical councils’ framework for understanding the two natures of Jesus and the tri-personal unity of God as the authentic understanding of revelation remains.  The sacramental reality of the Church and its core sacraments remain. And so on.  But the language used, the way the Church is structured, the application of moral principles to specific cultural issues (especially marriage and family), the language used to worship the Triune God or explain the core doctrines of our faith, the catechetical stories and imagery that can most effectively convey the gospel message within certain cultures, all need to emerge from within each significant culture as it embraces and lives out the core gospel message as part of the universal Church.

Pope Francis was very open to enculturation, especially when it came to non-sacramental, devotional practices such as processions, devotion to Mary and the saints, and integrating ancient indigenous practices with specifically Catholic feasts.  One could even view much of Pope Francis’ pontificate as trying to prepare the Church for future inculturation events: his respect for the wisdom of local synods of bishops, including a willingness to consider married priests were a regional synod of bishops in full agreement on that issue; his constant call to trust the synodal process in all significant discernments; his Apostolic Exhortation on the Amazon region (Querida Amazonia); his comfortableness with those pachamama figures in the sanctuary that angered someone so much that they removed them and threw into the Tiber river; his last encyclical Fratelli Tutti  (On Fraternity and Social Friendship) with its call for authentic conversation and dialogue especially with those who are different than us; and much more.  These all point in the direction of that world Church, deeply in dialogue with, respectful of, and shaped by more than just the European cultural experience.  The more enculturation permeates the Church and its practices, the greater the challenge to maintain a visible unity in the Church universal. Yet a lack of enculturation may create an external uniformity that seems like unity but takes the dynamism and energy out of the Gospel proclamation. What does a world Church look like that takes seriously the significant local cultures? Exactly like the current Roman Catholic Church or something much more diverse and dynamic, yet still unified?

These four snapshots of how the Second Vatican Council enabled the Church to look “back to the future” are an attempt at appreciating the open-ended nature and ongoing importance of that Council.  Viewed in tandem, these four moments can be seen as laying out the possibilities for the Church as it continues on its third millennium journey.  It is this combination of looking back and looking forward that gives Vatican II its distinctive character and provides the best framework for understanding its ongoing importance in the life of the Church.  There are those who mainly want to look backward, fearing we are losing the richness of Catholic life and traditions that developed in the last two millennium.  And there are those who mainly want to look forward, almost eagerly embracing each new development in the contemporary world.  The Second Vatican Council is a challenge for both, and that is how I would like to conclude this series of blogs.

Yes, we need to re-situate our understanding of Church leadership, including papal leadership, so that it is more attentive to local Churches and regions, but without losing the clear unity we have under the servant leadership of the bishop of Rome (the Pope).  Yes, we have to be honest and realize that the Church’s magisterium has at times opposed contemporary secular developments that it should have been in the forefront of championing (for example, condemning slavery and racism, rights of workers, full and equal dignity of women, freedom of conscience not to be coerced).  But this overcoming of a knee-jerk anti-modern stance does not mean we lose the need to be counter-cultural when necessary (for example, the sacredness and dignity of every human life, opposition to war and indiscriminate use of weapons, the critique of all economic and political systems, which put the profit of the few above the welfare of the least among us). Yes, we need to move past the apologetics of the Counter-Reformation and re-interpret the call to Christian unity as vital for the future of the Church and means so much more than trying to prove we are right and they are wrong.  However, where will that energy for Christian unity bear the greatest fruit (mainline Protestants? Orthodox? Contemporary non-denominational evangelicals? Pentecostal assemblies throughout the world?) and how will we help such unity be connected to the premier gift the Catholic Church brings to ecumenism and something we can never lose, the full and authentic understanding of Sunday Eucharist?  Yes, we need to recover the first millennium importance of baptismal identity for all in the Church, but will most of us so identify with our baptism, as to be willing to be public witnesses (martyrs?) and therefore suffer for our faith, or will our nationalist identities, other secular commitments, or even consumer comforts be more important to us than that baptismal identity?  And, finally, yes, we need to re-embrace the New Testament freedom to allow the gospel to be enculturated in significantly different ways, without losing its core meaning or the doctrinal developments that help preserve it.  But will we truly trust the Holy Spirit to lead the Church through the ambiguity that such an inculturation process entails (especially in cultures long shaped by Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Shinto, Muslim, and many indigenous religions), or will we fall back into the more comfortable, second millennium stance, where mission and the planting of a European-centered understanding of life and faith go hand-in-hand?  The next hundred years or so will tell.