The Roots of Catholic Division and Evangelism’s Frustration

By now you have seen the results of (yet again) another survey that shows a serious misalignment between Catholic doctrine and actual held-beliefs among Catholics. All the usual fault lines are there. Most Catholics don’t buy into the Church’s teaching on contraception, gay marriage, the male priesthood—and a whole host of other “cultural” issues. Per the normal breakdown there appears a bit of a division between “weekly” church-going Catholics and cultural Catholics, i.e., those Catholics who self-identify as such but don’t necessarily attend services weekly. And the contrast between the Americas/Europe and Asia/Africa on these beliefs continues. The Univision Survey, though relatively unscientific, reveals little new. The Church Francis has inherited from Benedict is the Church Benedict inherited from John Paul II and so on and so forth.

Then again, you probably missed Michael Hannon’s Friday article in First Things. In it, Hannon paints with some fairly broad strokes about the utter failure of American Catholics to properly grasp Francis’s call for a new evangelization. American Catholics are spending so much time “thinking” they are evangelizing that they are essentially loosing the greater point of needing to truly listen to and contextualize Francis’s words on the subject. That is, American Catholics need to realize when the Pope is speaking to them and when he is not speaking to them. “I am afraid that too much of the rhetoric in the United States surrounding the New Evangelization,” Hannon says, “has become a catering to the excesses of our day and place, under the pretenses of battling non-existent bad guys.” Straw men, meet my evangelization efforts.

Surprisingly both of these issues are related; both problems are accompanied by errors that distort a proper response. The first error is simply an over-description of the problem. It is probably high time that those of us talking about Catholicism—globally or nationally—stop painting with such a broad brush. Simply put, it is next-to-near impossible for us to accurately describe a general state of the Church that provides a reasonable grounds for concrete action on her behalf. This error comes from a Western tendency to want to see the (large “C” and universal) Church as applicable in every single place and time with similar characteristics (or at least as broken down into regional or national sub-groups). Unfortunately, this position is both theologically untenable (as Paul says to the Church of Corinth, to the Church of Rome, etc.) and it is also practically useless. New York ain’t Chicago ain’t San Francisco ain’t Miami.

Why do we do this? Because we uncritically import a second error: The Church is not a business organization that can be measured either by the effectiveness of its campaigns or by the adoption of its products. These surveys (and the gross over attention paid to them) only reinforce a notion that a successful Church is one where its members “buy” its products. Thus, the analysis tends to focus on two areas: first, the implicit message of the survey that the Church probably needs to consider selling a new and different product (the age old “let’s change the doctrine, guys”); second, that our marketing efforts are misplaced either in how we are presenting our message or to whom we are presenting it. But the Church is not some cheap huckster of doctrine whose success rate is necessarily measured in the number of conversions to her rolls, faithfulness of her members or even adoption of her dogma. There are simply too many variables, with the human condition of weakness and sin among them.

At the heart of this question is our understanding of the relationship between doctrine and Catholic identity. That is, can we use adherence to dogma and the living out of doctrine as an appropriate proxy for the health of Catholicism? Both the survey and Hannon’s piece seem to say yes. However, that proposition may too closely attenuate the identification of the moral teaching of the Church with the actual Gospel, that is, the news that Christ came once and for all to save us. It is an error that has populated (and continues to populate) our culture warriors on both sides of the issue. It is a misplaced sense that part of the Good News of Christ is not just that He died for our sins, but that there is a whole body of moral teaching , and that if we just “live it” we will necessarily be good, just, and righteous people.

The problem manifests itself with two fatal assumptions. Firstly, that what the Church does or does not propose is plainly livable, with the right intellectual and moral commitment. Hannon does not espouse this position in his writing, although many of his listeners probably do. Plainly, I do not believe it is possible to “live” the Church’s teaching as a mere lifestyle. That is, what the Church proposes on moral and cultural issues is hard and it is not a matter of knowing and of simply doing to live it out. Not just in our time, but in all times. The only thing that has radically changed from age-to-age is what seems hard. Secondly—and explaining why it is not a matter of merely knowing and doing—adhering to the moral teaching of the Church is not “added onto” life but rather it is the good fruit of a life that strives to live next to Christ, and ultimately is lived in imitation of Christ. This means that morality lived is derivative from an attachment and conformity to Christ and that conformity to Christ is not a priori dependent on moral uprightness. That is, what comes first—what has always come first—is not moral uprightness but a turn towards Christ! Thus, the moral life is analogous to a fruit of this connection, rather than something sold, added onto or done in our life.

To properly understand this position, we must look to the analogy of the gardener who is working with his plants to ensure that in due season and due time they produce the fruit that they are supposed to produce. That means an active tending of the garden, watering, weeding, nurturing, pruning, and eventually harvesting. In this way, the Church is not really in the business of success or surveys. Rather, she must live like her Founder (who indeed was confused for the gardener) precisely in that space where we, the plants, are “struggling and striving.” That, of course, implies the importance of paying attention not to the “broad trends” of Catholicism but to the local soil and places where we each find ourselves. Generalizations are only useful when and if they can and do drive specific and particular actions. Experience tells us that Catholicism is lived often very differently door-to-door, parish-to-parish. That is, each garden produces its own weeds and chats. And although some general pestilence affects us all, our issues are largely local because that is where the hard work happens.

Most of my friends who are Catholic and married disagree with the Church’s teachings as the survey indicates. But I am not sure that disagreement itself is really all that important—or is the crux of the matter. For example, of my married friends who I know see no problem with contraception, I also see a deep appreciation for family, children and yes, openness to life. How then are we to hold these two realities in tension? That is precisely where the work of the Church must come to play, to live in this place of “struggling and striving.” The plants clearly tend toward and are producing some fruit. How do we make them produce more fruit, better fruit, and the right sort? In the end neither surveys nor broad (though thoughtful) critiques of evangelization are what we ought to look towards. Love must be more subtle.

What we are discussing is an inversion of how we perceive Catholic social teaching. Andrew Haines was right last week in his description and call to return philosophy to the discussion on Catholic social teaching. That return of philosophical thinking goes hand-in-hand with a theological approach that does not see the content of Catholic social teaching as mere dogma to be conveyed. Rather it is an end that is appreciated as the fruit of a life well lived, situated in a society that is ordered towards a robust understanding of the common good. I suspect both new natural lawyers and apologists of a neo-liberal Catholic tradition will bristle at this notion precisely because it leaves us with a program that is all the while less defined and less persuasive than what has defined us over the last fifty years. But it is a move necessary and essential to a true cultivation of the full fruits of the Gospel.

Not to be lost are the first moments of Francis’s papacy. In it he reminded the world that he was chosen to be Bishop of Rome. That is—aside from the many theo-political implications of the position—Francis said his first duty was to the people of Rome. This included the poor and the lame, the sick and the lonely, the saints and the sinners, churchmen and the laity. He had a care for their souls: those were his sheep. Christians are all called by their baptism to share in Christ’s three-fold office of “priest, prophet and king.” The problem is that most of us refuse to see that the field we are called to till is much, much smaller than any of us really imagine. Indeed, most of us struggle with the little plant in the box that is our own soul. Nevertheless, we must struggle and strive because that is where the Church is called to meet her and for us to meet one another.

That place of struggling and striving is exactly how Francis framed his apostolic letter:

I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”.[1] The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!

That should give us hope, not worry. Does it?