Wanderer Forum Foundation - Fr. McBrien' s Catholicism

Fr. McBrien' s Catholicism

Trying To Incarnate The 'Spirit Of Vatican II' Mythology
A Review
Frank Morriss

The "completely revised and updated . . . new edition" ofFr. Richard P. McBrien's Catholicism is, like the first and second editions, an attempt to enflesh the so-called spirit of Vatican II. This is not a mean-spirited, conservative, negative judgment about the book. It is the understanding of the man chosen by Fr. McBrien to furnish the foreword to the third edition - Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Hesburgh writes that about a decade after he had completed his doctoral studies in theology, "we had, thanks to Vatican Council II, a fresh, challenging and new view of the Church, the laity, the liturgy, religious freedom, the sacraments, ecumenism, and many other theological aspects of Catholic life." Fr. Hesburgh recounts that he spent his annual retreat in a small cabin on a Wisconsin lakeshore "reading and savoring every word (of Fr. McBrien's work)."

Catholicism deals with the deepest Christian mysteries . . . but even more, in reading Catholicism, we see clearly and understand in depth the theological transformations that took place in Vatican Council II and subsequently.

Fr. Hesburgh in this foreword laments that he has been amazed how theological ly illiterate are the number of young Catholics who arrived at Notre Dame, despite their having grown up in Catholic homes and attended Catholic high schools:

Perhaps their Catholic parents never really understood the theological transformation of Vatican II. Even I, as a theologian who followed the council closely, need the systematic and comparative insights of Catholicism. I wish that every one of our students could take the course "Catholicism," taught by Fr. McBrien each year. Those who do are no longer theologically illiterate Catholics.

Presumably, then, those who do not take such a course or make Fr. McBrien's Catholicism their principal source of learning about their religion, arc the ologically illiterate. Yet we have from Fr. Hesburgh's own pen the assurance that the work is more about "theological transformations" than anything else. And no truer assessment could be made. Catholicism is an attempt through theological speculation and determination to incarnate the spirit of Vatican II, and present it not as the phantasm of the new theology. but as the Catholic religion itself.

The work, therefore, should more honestly be titled Catholikeisim or Catheologism. both suited to a book that offers subjective interpretation and opinion in the costume, but not the true substance, of the Catholic reality. True. there is considerable about Catholicism in this book (as there similarly is in any courses in "comparative" religion), but the conclusions - though often proffered in the form of infer ences - are invariably the prejudices of the new the ology, and its adherents such as Fr. McBrien and Fr Hesburgh.

Before we look at the hook itself we are entitled to look briefly at the author and at the gentleman who in the foreword recommends it as a vade mecum for the theologically literate Catholic. Fr. Hesburgh must be credited (or criticized) for "mainlining" Notre Dame University, that is. making it acceptable to the lords and trend-setters of modern American academies as well as modern American educational mega-finances. In 1972 Fr. Hesburgh was elected to the board of Chase Manhattan Bank. perhaps appropriate for one who had been a director of the institute for International Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, she Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Corporation: a trustee of Rockefeller Foundation, a member of the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Higher Education. cochairman of the National Conference for Interracial Justice, a director of the Adiai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs, a trustee of the National People to People Organization, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a director of the National Science Foundation.

It is obvious Fr. Hesburgh was not only acceptable to. but had been absorbed into, "the Establish- ment.' ' It is doubtful he would have come to that had Notre Dame, under his long presidency (and chaplaincy and professorship before that) remained what some alumni of old had called a "Catholic West Point.' ' It certainly did not. If it had it would undoubtedly not have been the only Catholic institution of education to receive a $6,000,000 no-strings grant Irom the Ford Foundation in 1960.

How did the Catholic faith fare at Notre Dame during this period of leaving the rigid, no-nonsense Mass, Confessions, Rosary regimen of old and entering the American mainstream? The answer might depend on how one interprets what it means to be Catholic. But there are objective and undeniable facts to be looked at as part of understanding the unequivocal endorsement by Fr. Hesburgh of Fr. McBrien's Catholicism.

Fr. Hesburgh has been a determined, uncompromising defender of what progressives call "academic freedom" in Catholic universities. In that role he was a major player in the formulation and adoption of the "Land 0' Lakes" statement of 1967, which most U.S. higher education institutions ratified. Its ideas are summed up in this paragraph:

The intellectual campus of the Catholic university has no boundaries and no borders. . . . The whole world of knowledge and ideas must be open to the students; there must be no outlawed books or subjects.

There could be an acceptable way of interpreting that statement, but we are entitled to consider how such institutions as Notre Dame and others have applied it. Standing on this idea these universities have never, to this moment, accepted fully and without reservation the Holy See's insistence that all such institutions calling themselves Catholic must show clearly their Catholic identity, and must accept the magisterium's judgment on the matter of being Catholic. Instead, Fr. Hesburgh and the other Catholic universities stand on the assertion of autonomy, that is, the right of the institution itself to determine its Catholic nature and identity. Catholicism thus becomes what they see it and claim it to be, just as Catholicism really presents and asserts what Fr. McBrien and like-thinking theologians consider Catholicism to be, whether it conforms to or contradicts tradition, magisterial statements, or any other Criteria.

It was perhaps this understanding that resulted, at least at one time in the late 1960's, some decade after Fr. Hesburgh became president, in less than half of Notre Dame students practicing their religion, at least according to some on-the-scene estimates. To counter such estimates, based mostly on Mass attendance, Fr. Hesburgh argued:

These kids no longer see religious truth as a body of doctrine to be memorized and believed. Religion for them is a search, quest for God through service to their fellow men. Although it is sometimes confused and obscure, I think it is a better kind of religion than the older variety, which Notre Dame taught for so long.

Such a viewpoint was pretty well verified by at least some of the students, at least in the heyday of the Hesburgh leadership. An editorial in the first 1968 issue of the official student newspaper. Scholastic, declared the students "not interested in Biblical studies any more; nor are they really interested in St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Greater modern thinkers like Marx, Freud, and Sartre, who could perhaps help them resolve some of the contradictions with which they are faced, are too often neglected. ..."

Obviously this is well within the spirit of the Land 0' Lakes declaration endorsement of letting every view blossom at Catholic universities. So, too, perhaps was the mock Mass reportedly celebrated on the campus that same year, in which "the object of veneration" was Mao Tse-tung (leader of Communist China at the time). According to the student journalist who reported it (in the Chicago Tribune) this "Mass" was presented as a ' 'protest over the lack of meaning in Catholic services." The same writer suggested that while Notre Dame students might not be attending Mass, they were working on inner-city projects and tutoring ghetto children, obviously the new and better kind of religion referred to by Fr. Hesburgh.

It is no wonder then that this master-educator found Fr. McBrien's Catholicism so invigorating and enlightening, for there is much of ' 'a better kind of religion than the older kind" evident in that book, somewhat similar to the kind detected by Fr. Hesburgh on the Notre Dame campus, where Fr. McBrien has taught and continues to do so at this moment.

We might think that an author so extolled as indispensable to Catholic theological literacy would show considerable attention and even respect to the Papal voice. But let us look closely at what was reported of Fr. McBrien's views (San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 18, 1987) about a landmark address of Pope John Paul II to U.S. Bishops in Los Angeles earlier that week:

'The Pope's speech to the bishops in Los Angeles Wednesday was a bad speech,' said the Rev. Richard McBrien, chairman of the theology department at University of Notre Dame. It will have no effect at all on Catholics in general, but it will make the bishops' jobs a lot harder.'

McBrien said Catholics who practice birth control will continue to do so after the Pope leaves, and women who believe they must have a greater role in the church will continue to insist on it long after the Pope's trip is forgotten.

On Wednesday, the Pope told American bishops that it is a 'grave error' to think someone can dissent from church teaching and still remain a good Catholic.

'I think it's up to the American bishops now, most of whom are on the liberal side, to meet with the Pope in private months from now,' McBrien said. 'I think they must talk to him man to man, not as subordinates, and tell him just how bad that speech was.

Let us sit down, author to reader, and see just what this insulting appraisal of the Pope's words reveal about Fr. McBrien's mind. To do so we must look carefully at what the Pope said, evoking such a negative reaction from the author of Catholicism.

The Pope stressed "ecclesiastical communion,' and the necessary "vertical dimension" of that communion for those who have a more vivid sense of only the "horizontal dimension:"

... There can be but one loyalty - to the word of God perennially proclaimed in the Church, entrusted to the Episcopal College with the Roman Pontiff as its visible head and perpetual source of unity;
... This universal Church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches, or as a federation of particular Churches. ..
The Catholic Church herself subsists in each particular Church, which can be truly complete only through effective communion in faith, in the Sacraments, and in unity with the whole Body of Christ.

Each particular Church is called to live in communion with the Successor of Peter:

To proclaim a body of moral teaching is in fact an inseparable part of the Church's mission to the world. . . . It has . . . been noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church's moral teaching. It is sometime claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a 'good Catholic' and poses no obstacle to the reception of the Sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching office of the Bishops of the United States and elsewhere.
To accept faith is to give assent to the word of God as transmitted by the Church's authentic Magisterium. Such assent constitutes the basic attitude of the believer, and is an act of the will as well as of the mind. It would be altogether out of place to try to model this act of religion on attitudes drawn from secular culture.
Within the ecclesial community, theological discussion takes place within the framework of faith. Dissent from Church doctrine remains what it is, dissent; as such it may not be proposed or received on an equal footing with the Church's authentic teaching.

(It should be interpolated here that the Pope's statement immediately above may be at the heart of Fr. McBrien's pique with the talk, for as we shall see the author seems in Catholicism to give to dissent a place of equality with orthodox doctrine.)

The way to the heart very often passes through the mind, and throughout the length and breadth of the Church there is need for a new effort of evangelization and catechesis directed to the mind. . .A crucial aspect of this 'apostolate of the mind' concerns the duty and right of Bishops to he present in an effective way in Catholic colleges and universities and institutes of higher studies in order to safeguard and promote their Catholic character, especially in what affects the transmission of Catholic doctrine.
As I have stated and as Archbishop Weakland has pointed out, women are not called to the priesthood. Although the teaching of the Church on this point is quite clear, it in no way alters the fact that women are indeed an essential part of the Gospel plan to spread the Good News of the Kingdom.
I . . . ask you as Bishops to make very effort to ensure that the important norms of the universal Church with regard to the use of general absolution are understood and observed in a spirit of faith.
I wish to encourage you also in the pastoral care that you give to homosexual persons. This includes a clear explanation of the Church's teaching, which by its nature is unpopular. Nevertheless your own pastoral experience confirms the fact that the truth, howsoever difficult to accept, brings grace and often leads to a inner conversion.

The Pope singled out for praise and recommendation part of a pastoral letter on sex education from the Bishops calling "recovery of the virtue of chastity . . . one of the most urgent needs of contemporary society," and asked great efforts to assist parents "in teaching their children the sublime value of self-giving love. ' ' (All emphases in the above excerpts are in the original text as given in John Paul II in America, St. Paul Books, a compilation of texts from the Press Office of the Holy See.)

Now, if those things said by the Pope are bad, indeed so bad the Bishops should correct him, what Fr. McBrien thinks should be good. But the question is, can what a Catholic thinks in contradiction of a Pope truly be Catholicism, that is, when it concerns the Catholic Church and its doctrine? Therefore may we not conclude that Fr. McBrien's Catholicism is misnamed, as has been suggested earlier in this monograph?

Not so for Sr. Nadine Foley, reviewing the book in the (Sept. 9, 1994) National Catholic Reporter. She finds it an evidence of Fr. McBrien's "growth in the assimilation of contemporary movements in theology and scripture and their integration into the mainstream of developments within Catholicism. . .." (This is a reasonably accurate assessment of just what the book is - an ideological polemic, even though Fr. McBrien attempts to deny it, aimed at selling modernist theology as now genuinely Catholic.) Foley likewise praises Catholicism for its feminist "insights into a new ecclesiology," and for bringing "within the mainstream of theology spokeswomen for that cause such as Anne Carr, Elizabeth Johnson, Rosemary Ruether, Elizabeth Fiorenza, and Sandra Schneiders." Foley also likes the books "fuller development of liberation theology, which she thinks lends to Catholicism's being "an interesting comparison" to The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Foley's assessment of Fr. McBrien's book is undoubtedly accurate, for the work has to be evaluated in the context of New Church and the new theology, and on that Dominican Sister Foley should be expert, as a former spokesperson for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for which she edited Claiming Our Truth: Reflections on Identity by United States Women Religious.

Dr. William Coulson, former associate of the late Carl R. Rogers, guru of the humanist "psychology of self," found this book of Foley's "an occasion for mourning." Writing in The Forum (vol. iv. No. 4, 1989) Dr. Coulson commented:

The authors (of the various essays in the work), who live 20 years in the past - a past filled with vain hopes of a revolution that would produce nothing but constructive effects on the Church - suggest that we have not heard the last of them. They are probably right. For what is promoted in Claiming Our Truth is very much a piece not only with what disolved the fabric of Religious life in the sixties, but also with what will continue to be poured into school children instead of academics.

Dr. Coulson was thinking of the promotion of psychology as a substitute for spirituality, and a demeaning and corrupting psychology at that. But it is clear that Foley sees Catholicism as an adjunct of that effort, so that it is a funnel for pouring humanism, secularism, radicalism and a theology compatible with ascendant psychology into the Catholic mind. A look at Fr. McBrien's work can either verify or dispel that judgment. The rest of this monograph will be dedicated to that purpose.

First, both Fr. Hesburgh and Sr. Foley make much of the structural rearrangement of the book, especially the moving of the chapter "What is Catholicism?" from the end to the beginning. This is a clever polemic ploy. Put at the end of the book in the earlier editions, it in effect said (for the author) "I have presented evidence that now justifies my telling you readers just what is meant by Catholicism. I have made an argument and here is the conclusion." Putting the chapter now at the opening of the book in effect says, "Here is what Catholicism really is. and you therefore should accept all I have to say about it as mere explanation or explication." In other words, Fr. McBrien, by merely moving his conclusions to the start, implies there is no argument about them, that they are clearly established and accepted. It is a disguised use of the old and common fallacy called "begging the question." And for that Fr. Hesburgh, not exactly an amateur in intellectual salesmanship, praises his favorite guide into the future of the new theology.

There is nothing in that new theology more damaging than its attempt to redefine the meaning of Catholic Church, including its identification as the Mystical Body of Christ, the True Church and only one established by Christ, the Roman Catholic Church. So we must examine how that idea is treated in Catholicism.

First, after saying that "the West claimed for itself the title Catholic Church" after the Protestant Reformation, Fr. McBrien indulges in what we might call "However Argumentation:"

However, some today insist that the adjective Catholic applies also to many other Christians who regard themselves as evangelical, reformed, and Catholic alike. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) broadened the notion of catholicity to include churches outside the Catholic Church (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 8), and spoke of them as possessing varying 'degrees' of catholicity (Decree on Ecumenism. n. 3) - (Catholicism. p. 4. emphases here as well in preceding quotation in the original).

Despite Fr. McBrien's careful wording the suggestion is clear: It is now an acceptable view that Chris- tians outside the Catholic Church are in fact Catholic, at least in some degree. And more importantly, the Second Vatican Council says so.

Unfortunately for this "however" argument of Fr. McBrien that is not what the Second Vatican Council says in the section cited. Indeed, there is reason to conclude from that section it says the opposite.

It speaks of the singleness, the one reality, of the visible, hierarchical Church and the Mystical Body of Christ, and goes on:

This is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care (Jn. 21:17), commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . ." (n. 8, Flannery).

This is small comfort for the idea that Christians other than embraced in that sole Church under the care of Peter and the Bishops can properly be called Catholics, or properly consider themselves such. So too of Fr. McBrien's assertion that the Council spoke of them possessing varying "degrees" of catholicity. (Decree on Ecumenism, n. 3)

The closest that section of Unitatis Redintegratio comes to saying that is in referring to separated Christians as "brothers" to Catholics, having been baptized and properly called Christians, and having some or "even very many" of the elements and endowments that build up the Church and can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church. It adds, significantly, that these elements "belong by right to the one Church of Christ," which the Council identifies elsewhere as that Church having the four marks - Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. (Lumen Gentium, chapters I, II, III, especially, n. 8) - "This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it." (see also, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 811). All of this leaves as highly disputable the acceptability of the claim by "some today" presented by Father McBrien that Vatican II stretched the notion of catholicity to embrace other Churches or even that it spoke of their having "varying 'degrees' of catholicity."

It is also highly disputable that "the adjective Roman applies more properly to the diocese, or see, of Rome than to the worldwide Church," or that we should give attention to Fr. McBrien's concern for those "some Catholics" who find it contradictory "to call the Church Catholic and Roman at one and the same time. ' ' Fr. McBrien is here playing word games by ignoring the application of the term "Rome" to identify the unity of all Churches united to Bishop of Rome. So well established is that usage that Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis uses the term on a level with the traditional four marks - "If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ - which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church - we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression 'The Mystical Body of Christ. . ." (13).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church appeals to St. Ignatius of Antioch in its explanation of "What does 'catholic' mean" (830):

Particular Churches are fully catholic through their communion with one of them, the Church of Rome 'which presides in charity.' (834, citing St. Ignatius, Ad Rom. 1, 1: Apostolic Fathers, 11/2, 192)

This by inference enlarges the term Roman beyond its parochial or diocesan denotation, and it is in that enlarged sense Pius XII in the words given above from the encyclical uses the word Roman to name, identify, and in a sense, define that Church founded by Christ and having the marks such Church possesses. And it was undoubtedly in that sense and with that understanding that Pope Paul VI said something heard in St. Peter's Basilica by the author of this monograph - "We are all Romans!" In fact, it is union to Rome (and thus in a genuine sense "Romanism") that validates the universality or catholicity of the true Church. (This Fr. McBrien chooses to ignore, so that in his glossary Roman Catholicism is merely "that tradition within the Catholic communion of churches which follows the Roman Rite."

In his section on the Church Fr. McBrien presents his understanding of a generic Church to which Catholics. Protestants, Orthodox, and in fact all Christians belong (along with Catholics) as the teaching of Vatican II. And he calls this the "whole Body of Christ." This "principle," Fr. McBrien declares, has "modified the pre-Vatican II concept that the Catholic Church alone is the one, true Church, and that the other Christian communities . . . are somehow 'related' to the Church but are not members of it."

Fr. McBrien (along with most spokespersons of the new theology) relies heavily for this idea on the words "subsist in" as used in this passage from Lumen Gentium:

"This (one, holy, catholic and apostolic) Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successors of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." (n. 8) (emphasis added). Fr. McBrien points out the words "subsists in" were substituted for verb is that appeared in an original draft.

The implication therefore is given that subsists in means the sole Church of Christ is either more or less than the Catholic Church - in this case, of course, more. We should ask if this inference is justified?

First, nowhere does the Constitution on the Church state what Fr. McBrien says it "reflects," the theological understanding that other Christians belong, along with Catholics, to the sole Church of Christ. Rather, it says what Fr. McBrien claims it does not say: "That those accepting all the Church teaches and are joined to the visible structure governed by the Pope are "fully incorporated" into that Church. Of other. Christians, Lumen Gentium speaks of the Church being "joined in many ways" to them." That is clearly different from saying they are incorporated into the Church, and in fact suggests the opposite. It would have been simple to have said it had the Council wished to teach that they were.

But did the Council recognize an invisible membership in that Church, truly modifying the understanding that the Mystical Body of Christ is no more than the Catholic Church itself, Christ being the head and the faithful members of the Church His members. No, rather the Council speaks of the Body as the Church, and since elsewhere it speaks of an absolute unity of visible and invisible elements, we may conclude that there is no separate, invisible Church to which one can belong. Further, the Council speaks of a diversity of gifts being given to members of that body, with primacy belonging "to the grace of the apostles to whose authority the Spirit himself subjects even those who are endowed with charisms." (n. 6, Further, Lumen Gentium explains that Christ "continually provides in his body, that is, in the Church for gifts of ministries which, by his power, we serve each other. . . . "Next, the Council discusses Christ as the one mediator, who "established and ever sustains here on earth his holy Church, the community of faith hope and charity, as a visible organization through which he communicates truth and grace to all men. But the society structured with hierarchical organs and the mystical body of Christ, the visible society and the spiritual community, the earthly Church and the Church endowed with heavenly riches, are not to he thought of as two realities." (n. 8, emphasis added.)

This all militates against the claim of Fr. McBrien that the Church founded by Christ and necessary for salvation is broader than the Catholic Church, with that latter Church being only one of many in that wider Church.

But what of those words "subsists in?" They can and should be understood as used here not to suggest the Church of Christ is or can be something other than the Catholic Church, but rather to indicate the way or manner of how that Church is in fact the Catholic Church. Almost all of the Fathers of the Council were trained in scholastic philosophy, including its metaphysics (ontology, the science of being). And we may understand the word "subsists" and the noun "subsistence" as they are explained by that philosophy. To subsist, or have subsistence, means that which is an hypostasis, that is, the substance of a thing which makes it other than some qualification or accident that must inhere in something else. The term speaks of the full and independent existence of the thing. Thus the Church of Christ, the sole True Church, One. Holy, Catholic, Apostolic (and in Pius XII 's own words given above) Roman, has subsistence in the visible and recognizable Church with those marks. It follows it does not and cannot have that substance or hypostasis elsewhere.

Therefore, when Fr. McBrien (p. 670) interprets the words "subsists in" to mean that the Body of Christ "is present in its fullness there (in the Catholic Church), but not exclusively," he is making a judgment not based on how the words were actually used, but as he would like them to mean. They are not meant to indicate a spatial or existential conditions, as if Christ's Body is within the Catholic Church, exists there as in a dwelling, but has abode elsewhere. They rather indicate the manner as well us the explanation of the identity of the Body of Christ with the Catholic Church.

How then can elements of that Church exist elsewhere? Certainly not because the substance or hypostasis of that Body is elsewhere. The Council lias clearly said that hypostasis is one only with the Catholic Church. And as the Council indicates, it is only elements or endowments, "possessions," if you will, of that Body that exist elsewhere.

We may use an analogy to illustrate. A garden has a certain reality, existing somewhere, identifiable by its arrangement, its borders. All that the garden is makes an hypostasis, a substance, that is, "gardenness.' ' There are elements in that garden that can exist outside it. Thus flowers may be cut, taken to the drawing room or dining room of the owner, or given to guests to take home, or even stolen and taken away elsewhere. They keep the beauty, the appearance, even some of the life of the garden, but are not the garden itself. They do not have "gardenness," but are simply remindful of the garden. Theoretically, some of the nutrients from the garden could be taken to keep the cut flowers alive, no matter where they are, perhaps beyond the care or reach of the proper gardener. They may delight and refresh those who possess them, legally or otherwise. No matter who might claim they are in reality the garden, or that they are genuinely gardens in the sense the garden they were taken from is, that would not be truly the case.

Thus some of the life of the Body of Christ does exist outside of the Catholic Church, through Christ's mercy and permission. Some of the channels of that life that flows most fully to and in the Catholic Church, can carry that life outside that Church, as for example Baptism which can exist beyond the reach or control of the Church's Hierarchy. Christ, indeed, may recognize the sincerity and good will of those who enjoy the beauty brought or taken from His garden, even though many may not recognize the proper place of that beauty and life, in the garden that is the Catholic Church. But there is only one garden, there is only one reality that has the "gardenness," where Christ's Body has subsistence. All other have only a largesse, the gift of grace, the elements that grace the Church and are fully present there. But they are not the Church, and those who have them cannot be said to be members of that Church.

Given his misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the nature of the Church, we should expect Fr. McBrien to have similar skewed ideas concerning Papal authority, so necessary and essential a part of that Church. And so we find Fr. McBrien suggesting that Papal authority is somewhat dependent on collaboration with other Bishops, and that Bishops somehow or other share in the Pope's supreme authority:

With the Second Vatican Council the papacy is viewed in increasingly communal and collegial terms. The pope exercises supreme authority over the Church, but the bishops also share in that authority. . . . The pope still has 'full, supreme, and universal power over the Church,' but the bishops are no longer perceived as simply the pope's vicar or delegates. .. .They govern their dioceses not as 'vicars of the Roman Pontiff, for they exercise an authority which is proper to them' (n. 27 - LG, quoted on p. 757).

Finally, whatever authority the pope and the bishops enjoy, it is always to be exercised within a communion of local churches through the faithful preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and loving service. (p. 758)

As for much of what Fr. McBrien says, this is a subtle bending or orienting of much that is true. As certain Catholics once viewed their Church's teaching through Calvin's spectacles, here we are seeing the Council through Fr. McBrien's spectacles. With these spectacles, the theologian seems to be conveniently blind to a very important part of the Constitution on the Catholic Church.

That part is the "Preliminary Note" added at the insistence of Pope Paul VI to the Constitution, and which is part of that document equal in force and authority to any other statement or part. Nowhere do I find in Fr. McBrien's Catholicism reference to that note, despite the fact it is pertinent and prescriptive of the very subjects he discusses on 757-758, treated immediately above. No wonder Fr. McBrien ignores this note. It demands an interpretation different from his, which indicates a restricted, or at least a leveled or equalized, Papal authority brought down to the plane of all other Bishops, and inoperative except in conjunction with them and their acceptance. That, in fact, was precisely the interpretation which, when brought to the Pope's attention as the aim of certain progressive Council Fathers, led to insertion of the Note. Consider what that has to say:

1. The word College is not taken in the strictly juridical sense, that is as a group of equals who transfer their powers to their chairman, but as a permanent body whose form and authority is to be ascertained from revelation. . . .

There is not such a thing as the college without its head: it is 'The subject of supreme and entire power over the whole Church.' This much must be acknowledged lest the fullness of the Pope's power be jeopardized. . . . In the college the head preserves intact his function as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the universal Church. . . . The Pope alone, in fact, being head of the college, is qualified to perform certain actions in which the bishops have no competence whatsoever, for example, the convocation and direction of the college, approval of the norms of its activities. .. .

History, tradition and the magisterium confirm that another function of the supreme pastor of the Church is to validate and confer upon all other Bishops the right to function as local shepherds, whereas such Bishops, either individually or acting together, have no right, power or authority to validate or confirm the right of the Pope to function as ruler, teacher, and chief pastor. Thus, though Fr. McBrien is right that the other Bishops are not simply vicars of the Pope, they come into being as legitimate pastors only on confirmation either directly or by delegation of that role by the Pope and enjoy it at his pleasure. (The rump Council of Basle tried to take away from the Papacy the right to validate Bishops, but that failed along with whole Conciliar heresy.)

Fr. McBrien correctly finds the authority of both Pope and Bishops exercised properly in service, but he ignores that discipline can be part of that service, and a necessary part. A Pope, for example, may excommunicate another Bishop, but no other Bishop can excommunicate a Pope. A Pope may lay interdict against any geographic or juridical part of the Church; a Bishop may interdict only within his own localized jurisdiction.

Fr. McBrien's interpretations may be close to those hoped for in certain dialogues between Catholics and Protestants, but they are not the interpretations of the Council, of tradition, or of orthodox understanding. Occam, Gerson, and others who advocated the conciliar heresy and a sort of democratically or laygoverned Church were not vindicated by Vatican II, and they remain unorthodox, despite echoes of those errors Fr. McBrien's Catholicism.

Likewise for his attempt virtually to dismiss the truth of Papal infallibility, by raising the claim of Peter Berger that defines "modern consciousness" as "living under the impact of this need to make our own choices." (The Heretical Imperative, cited by Fr. McBrien on p. 760) But it is not Berger, but Fr. McBrien who claims the "issue of infallibility is also affected by a new understanding of authority abroad in the world - "a world of pluralism, diversity, and the necessity of choice."

Using this existential red herring, Fr. McBrien asks:

What possible meaning can the claim of immunity from error have in such a world and in light of modern experience? Does it make sense any longer for the Church to press the point that it and its official representatives (the pope, an ecumenical council, the body of bishops in union with the pope) are, in fact, guaranteed this charism of immunity from error when solemnly teaching about the faith and its moral demands? These are the kinds of questions which the theologians have to address, even as they remain essentially faithful to the definitive teaching of the Church?" (p. 760, emphasis added).

But the real point is will such theologians (actually Fr. McBrien himself) answer such a question in an objective, Catholic, and "essentially faithful" way'? He does not do so in Catholicism, apparently with a mind to leaving doctrine, even the words of Vatican II (which is definite on infallibility) to die an existential death, a death of disregard. Surely this tactic of belittling and minimizing is being used when he declares infallibility "will always remain a matter of much theological and pastoral importance," but immediately adds:

Disengaged from exaggerations of papal authority and placed in the wider context of collegiality and the nature of the Church as the People of God, the dogma of infallibility is much less an ecumenical problem than it once was.

Translating McBrienese, this means that there is no problem when infallibility is exercised only with the consent and acceptance of everyone in a Church where Papal authority is seen as dependent on the agreement and acceptance of all, sort of government "of the people, by the people, for the people." But then do we have Catholicism or Congregationalism?

In view of the above, it is likely that even had Catholicism been published after Pope John Paul II's recent definitive and conclusive declaration on the impossibility of ordination of women it is unlikely Fr. McBrien would have given that more than mention in Catholicism. (If infallibility is so trivial an exercise. what of less formal exercises of Papal magisterium?)

What Fr. McBrien does is give "arguments in favor" and "arguments against" ordination of women, implying it is only a matter of debate and theological determination. Even in the "arguments against" portion, Fr. McBrien can't resist a polemical slanting when he puts one point thus: "It is not clear that the women who were called deaconesses in the New Testament were ordained or whether their ordination was sacramental."

The truth is that feminists and their sympathetic theologians, such as Fr. McBrien, can only pretend to find the term "deaconess" in the Old Testament. One word they rely upon, oikovos, denotes one who has a ministry. There was service by widows, mentioned in Timothy's first letter. Later there were clearly women called deaconesses, distinct from widows. Though there was a ceremony of laying hands upon such women, the earliest formula of this ceremony is markedly different from that used in the ordination of deacons. Early pronouncements of the Church rejected any idea that women could receive ordination. (Council ofNismes, 394 A.D.; Orange, 441.)

Non-magisterial statements do refer to "ordination" of deaconesses, which is perhaps the reason that the Council of Nicea insisted that deaconesses are to be considered lay persons and to receive no ordination such as that required for Holy Orders. Some things that feminists appeal to in history in light of all the facts should be considered abuses of the legitimate purpose and role of women ministers, and as such were soon repressed by Church legislation. (Fr. McBrien's "suggested readings" on this subject contains a large dose of feminist argumentation by Joan Chittister, Regina A. Coil, et al.)

Thus Fr. McBrien has clearly attempted an argument "for ordination" of women under the guise of being one against it - an argument by what we might call minimization and failure to give the full facts.

In regard to human freedom and responsibility, which involve the nature of sin, Fr. McBrien can be recognized on the side of the "fundamental optionists," such as "Joseph Fuchs and others" cited by him on p. 955. Unfortunately, he never adequately or with a mind to traditional Catholic understanding deals with questions raised by that school of thought - that is, that the effective morality of our acts is determined by our choice to be either "for God" or against Him. He leaves us with the possibility that Hell, clearly a teaching of doctrine as revealed by Christ and defined by the magisterium, is a mere possibility for us, but it is more than likely empty. Though it is true that the Church never has and certainly never will proclaim or identify anyone as being certainly in hell. if there are not souls there eventually to be joined by their bodies after the Resurrection, then hell would be a rather useless and empty doctrine. Nor would there be any reasonable way to understand Christ's words about the wicked ones who at the judgment will be sent to dwell in everlasting exile. Fr. McBrien seems (p. 957) to think such passages and others in Scripture about "eternal punishment" as presentations of "possibilities of human life and as instructions about the absolute seriousness of our moral decisions." This would seem to reduce such passages to pastoral exaggerations, such as hell and brimstone preachers make.

Fr. McBrien seems to reach this understanding by way of the fundamental option, which means "we can never be certain that we have finally and fully said 'No' lo God. even in an act which appears on the surface to be of such kind." He relies upon Karl Rahner for this:

We can never know with ultimate certainty that we are sinners. But although it can be suppressed, we do know with ultimate certainty that we really can be sinners. ...

It should be said immediately that the possibility without actuality of sin leaves Christ's Redemption as well as the sacrament of forgiveness (Penance, Reconciliation) somewhere in a sort of limbo. What is to be confessed by one who cannot know with certainty whether he or she has sinned, but is only aware of possibility of sin?

Much of this flows from Fr. Rahner's understandings that grace is of the essence of man's nature, which seems to echo old Pelagius' vision of humans being by nature good enough for salvation, rather than by free supernatural gift of grace which is not theirs by right or claim - a gift capable of being lost through rebellion against its Giver, and despite the Redemption.

For Fr. McBrien (p. 957) fatal sin is in the saying of "yes" or "no' ' to God, and that has to be judged "on the basis of the totality of our lives."

None of this "fundamental option" theorizing is compatible with what The Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about sin. That catechism accepts St. Augustine's definition, "(Sin is) an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law." (1849). That Catechism explains that to be mortal, a sin "requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God's law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice." (1734, emphasis in the Catechism English edition).

This from the official catechism is hardly compatible with Fr. McBrien's contention that sin is no single act, hut only some totality of life in which the individual says "no" to God, and that even that "fundamental option" can't be known as certain even by the one making it!

Fr. McBrien distinguishes this "mortal sin" of the fundamental option ("an act which fully engages the person") in which "the person chooses not only the act (the categoral dimension) but also the kind of person he or she wants to be or become in and through the act (the transcendental dimension)" - distinguishes that from "serious sin." (p. 959, emphases his). He cites missing Mass on Sunday without good reason as the latter kind of sin. He rejects the old theology's insistence that all serious sin is mortal sin on the basis of "insights of both psychology and sociology." However, it is only the new theologians themselves who should be either credited or blamed, for they have simply appropriated psychology as an excuse for defining sin and virtue as a process of "self-definition." Aside from the fact that hardly jibes with Fr. McBrien's claim (via Fr. Rahner) that one cannot know when one has fundamentally opted against God, it is impossible to consider mortal sin as the result of a self-discovery process. Is it not rather a rejection of our properly relationship with He who Is" For such a rejection we must have already recognized ourselves as created and defined by the Creator. A child who dishonors his or her father or mother does not define self by that act; rather it is a sinful act because he or she is child, knows it, and acts contrary to what is known. In a sense all sin, therefore, is one against that commandment, for God Is the divine and absolute Father, and we as creatures are children bound to honor and obey Him.

In the related area of conscience, Fr. McBrien claims to draw from the Council a basis for dissent from Catholic moral teaching. He tries to draw a syllogism (or enthymeme) thus:

If. . .after appropriate study, reflection, and prayer, a person is convinced that his or her conscience is correct, in spite of a conflict with the moral teachings of the Church, the person not only may but must follow the dictates of conscience rather than the teachings of the Church.

The Church has never explicitly claimed to speak infallibly on a moral question, so there is probably no instance as yet of a conflict between an individual's fallible decision in con- science and a teaching of the Church which is immune from error.

... Every teaching still has to be applied in particular cases. One is not necessarily repudiating the values affirmed in the teaching if one decides that the teaching does not bind or apply in a particular instance.

The teachings themselves are historically conditioned. What may have been perceived as morally wrong in one set of circumstances, e.g., charging interest on a loan in the Middle Ages - would be regarded as morally justified in another situation - e.g., charging interest on a loan today, in the context of modern commercial life." (pp. 973-4)

Even in his "on the other hand" presentation concerning this Fr. McBrien reduces the Church's teaching to only "a major resource of such moral direction and leadership" that the Catholic should depend upon, so that one "is not a faithful Catholic who deliberately and systematically excludes all references to official church teaching in making moral decisions." (p. 974). For this Fr. McBrien appeals to the Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom and Pope John Paul II, who in Veritatis Splendor said, "... the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians." (See above, though, what he said about dissent.)

At the very start of our rebuttal to this barely veiled defense of dissent from moral teaching, let it he said that only by restricting infallibility to ex cathedra statements by the Pope can Fr. McBrien maintain "the Church has never explicitly claimed to speak infallibly on a moral question. . . . "The truth is that the Council of Trent did speak on several moral questions, i.e., immoral practices:

Against the subtle wits of some also, who by pleasing speeches and good words seduce the hearts of the innocent, it must be maintained that the grace of justification once received is lost not only by infidelity, whereby also faith itself is lost, but also by every other moral sin, though in this case faith is not lost; thus defending the teaching of the divine law which excludes from the kingdom of God not only unbelievers, but also the faithful (who are) fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, liars with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, railers, extortioners, and all others who commit deadly sins, from which with the help of divine grace they can refrain, and on account of which they are cut off from the grace of Christ. ' ' (Decree Concerning Justification, chapter xv, emphases the Council's as given in the canons and decrees of Trent translated by Rev. H.J. Schroeder, S.J.)

It would be difficult for anyone to maintain that the declarations of a dogmatic Council, such as Trent, issued with Papal approbation and endorsement, and in keeping with constant tradition and doctrine - to maintain that such statements are not infallible.

About the specific decree quoted above, Fr. Schroeder wrote:

... Many of the council's dogmatic decrees are gems, masterpieces of theology reduced to the briefest possible form, yet sufficiently complete to leave nothing wanting. I make mention particularly of the famous decree on justification, in the working out and formulation of which 'the spirit of God is easily discernible.' . . . In the reform decrees the reader will find the means employed by the Church to correct and remove prevailing moral evils and abuses." (Translator's foreword, The Canon and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Tan Books.)

Did, however, the Second Vatican Council recognize conscience as the supreme and final authority in moral questions, able to set aside or dispense from Catholic magisterial statements, whether infallible or not? That is surely the suggestion in the first premise in Fr. McBrien's argument. But a close reading of the Declaration on Religious Liberty does not bear out his understanding, and certainly not his conclusion in regard to dissent.

This declaration discusses freedom of conscience in terms of the individual person's right to be free from coercion, and that because "the highest norm of human life is the divine law itself, - eternal, objective and universal, by which God orders, directs and governs the whole world and the ways of the human community according to a plan conceived in his wisdom and love. God has enabled man to participate in this law of his so that, under the gentle disposition of divine providence, many may be able to arrive at a deeper knowledge of unchangeable truth. For this reason everybody has the duty and consequently the right to seek the truth in religious matters, so that, through the use of appropriate means, he may prudently form judgments of conscience which are sincere and true." (Dignitatis Humanae, I)

But we know that the Catholic Church claims for herself the authority and duty to be guardian and interpreter of divine law. (see Dei Verbum, II; The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1785, 1792; Lumen Gentium, 8, 1).

All of this allows us to ask if the imagined dissenter in Fr. McBrien's first premise can claim justification by conscience. Or has not he or she made the a priori judgment that dissent can be so justified. In other words, could such a person having made "appropriate study, reflection and prayer" (Fr. McBrien's conditions) conclude contrary to Catholic teaching? Appropriate study would have revealed the Church's claim to be the authoritative presenter and interpreter of all divine law, including moral law. Thus "good conscience" would hardly validate dissent from such.

But what of Fr. McBrien's claim that one could refrain from applying the Church's teaching in some particular case. If facts allow such a conclusion, then of course the teaching does not apply, as for example the general law against self-mutilation is not applicable when such mutilation is necessary to save one's life. But even here that is not a matter of individual determination, but only of personal, individual application. That is to say, the individual conscience does not supply the non-application, but only finds it with the Church's own approval and explanation (through accepted theological reasoning).

As for moral teaching being historically conditioned, so that something could have been considered wrong once but is not so considered now, that is pure relativist, modernist claptrap. Fr. McBrien's own example - usury - proves that.

Apologists have long dealt with that case, pointing out that neither the law against usury or its application has changed, but only the economic function of money itself. When money was dead, without yielding interest, to lend it at a charge was to take advantage of someone's need through providing money that if not lent would have not enriched at all the owner, who nevertheless charges the needy for its use. With economic evolution, money became alive, and did bear interest, so that a lender depriving himself of it was suffering loss. Interest charged a borrower is necessary for the lender not to suffer loss. Today lending money at reasonable interest is not usury.

The teaching of the Church against usury has no been "historically conditioned." It is applied in a certain historical context, indeed, as every teaching must be. But the teaching itself is not compromised, no should it be considered as some time-based thing, the way for example some want homosexual practice masturbation, abortion, suicide, euthanasia to be accepted through an evolution of thought. So, too, the other side of the coin, so that some want even defensive war, capital punishment, or even pronouncement of uncomfortable truths to be considered wrong today, when they were not such yesterday.

Unfortunately, many will not know how flawed is Fr. McBrien's presentation of the nature of the Church, the character of Papal infallibility, the bind ing quality of Church teaching, including its moral doctrine because they have been denied access to the reality of Catholicism.

It is said that some of Galileo's critics were so certain of their idea of the cosmos that they refused to even look through the telescope that the great man had obtained. (Of course, Galileo had his own stubbornness as well, insisting on a reading of Scripture in light of his own ideas.)

At one time almost all in Medieval Europe believed in the existence of an ideal monarch named Prester John ruling a sort of Camelot in the depths of Africa. Most had never visited that continent, but took as true about it what was reported to them by dispensers of the Prester John Myth.

So, too, today more and more Catholics accept certain versions of Catholicism - the Church, its authority, its teaching - based on what dispensers of the new theology tell them. These story-spinners have created a "spirit of Vatican II" that fits what they are selling as the Catholic reality. Fr. McBrien is one such spin doctor, myth creator. The "spirit of Vatican II" is his Prester John, and that of almost all who wish to create a modernist, American (or Gallican, Anglican, Australian, Canadian) Church. They find their selling job made easier by presenting their views as the total Catholic picture, the real thing, dismissing past visions and teachings as inapplicable, invalid, reactionary.

But those who are not so hoodwinked can see through the effort, and can provide evidence that it is false. This monograph is an attempt to do such, and to present the reality and not the modernist myth that passes as a reality that actually does not exist. The author of this review suggests that those having eyes actually see, and those with ears actually heal - not what he writes or says - but what the Church itself reveals Itself to be - Mother, Teacher, authorized master of religious truth. Body of Christ as well as Christ's Bride, bridge of salvation leading to Christ's heavenly kingdom, and meanwhile that kingdom as it does and can only exist on earth.

Alongside that Reality all analyses, speculations, reasonings are of minor and relative importance. So that the wise person looks first at that Church, hears first its words, and only then turns to all other explanations to see how well they conform and reflect what is found in that Church, not how well the Church fits those explanations.

A FINAL NOTE

This review does not amount to an exhaustive analysis of all Fr. McBrien presents in Catholicism in his effort to summon up a theology disguised as a religion. Indeed, an analysis greater in length than what is written here should be published on what he presents about Christ and the Incarnation.