THE DOCTRINAL HANDSHAKE WITH THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE OF WOMEN RELIGIOUS: RESPONDING TO THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER MAY 23, 2014 EDITORIAL.

I have watched theological debates for quite a long time, and of all, few have shown the capacity to generate the kind of fire that is poised to engulf the entire theological world and yet permit both contenders to maintain some kind of peaceful and emotional attachment to its perceived oppressors than that which is happening between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in the U.S.

Significantly, both seem to have equal theological contents but in ways that are different and seemingly opposed to each other. Beyond this, the drama betrays what the face and contents of necessary tensions should look like in a reformed Local Church, and in the Universal Church between a Vatican under reform and a sincere theological attitude in need of direction and divine guidance.

Both sides must gather the courage to look the issues under contention straight in the face. A father cannot afford the luxury of throwing his best assets to the waste paper basket and that is if we come to appreciate the fact that theologians are great assets in the Church.

 But the daughters must also live their vocation in full, not tangentiall, appreciation of the authority and experience of a father. It is about a family where members, though different and free, also form a unity and live together in harmony under the one family umbrella.

The two-way consciousness playing out between Pope Francis’ Holy See which has been downsized to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller’s CDF and the LCWR, it must be noted, typifies the kind of necessary tension that obtain, now and then, in a healthy family atmosphere, and thus beyond the immediate contents which they hold in respect of the works of LCWR, constitute strong issues for the forthcoming Synod on the Family.

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Compelled or propelled, from the one side, by a superior authority that claims to be more theologically sound and divested of every ulterior motives or haunted by the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin's  evolution, it has become necessary to emphasize the need for every actor in the theological field to become all the more acquainted with the reality and  import of the difference and the tension that brew up as well as the interactive sessions between the Universal Church and the Local Church, and between an Objective experience and a Subjective one. All these are highly indispensable elucidating factors in reality’s own evolution.

In managing the common patrimony of faith, a quite reverent disposition, not the irredentism or bigotry which many have subscribed to about their subjective opinions regarding the Mystery that challenges us with faith- response,or the fundamentalism that divests reality of meaning and purpose  leaving behind some powerful traces of confusion and outrage, is the only thing worthy of the revelations, vision and mission that drive our zeal for action in the Church. 

                                       

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This brings me to the core issues in the CDF – LCWR face-off. 

Humanity has come of age and to dangerous crossroads in its journey towards actualization and so novelties must pose no surprises to anybody even though they are more clearly appreciated by progressive minds and hearts than by rigid mentality. However, novelties demand official response – one which must take into account the imposing edifice of rights and obligations in a pluralistic and democratic society. And to refuse to respond, or venture into a response outside the demands or conditions unequivocally outlined by freedom, justice and peace is what it means to appear unarguably unreal and exasperating.  

Coming from the farthest part of the earth (No racial sentiments are admitted here. And so it is not about being a non-Italian or an Italian but about an “outsider” to the intriguing Churchism and a kind of structural tyranny that developed in patches only to come together to constitute one full swoop of intransigent  administrative diarrhea that had held the church  captive behind the thick Vatican blinds in the past few decades)and being ruled by the kind of simplicity that gets noticed even by a roadside beggar unmistakably hold the explanation for the Pope Francis' effects that have left many Vatican watchers, both Catholics and non-Catholics, spellbound and at the same time give a vivid outline of the shape of the “consciously evolving” Papacy under Francis. 

To get those huge personal assets partner or blend with the silent obtrusive administrative ordinances that preserve the appurtenances of the Faith and keep the heartbeat of the Church running is what it means to be a Pope for the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world. To ignore them is one ugly way of how not to be a Pope.

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The Second Vatican Council took the signs of the time into consideration as it talked about crisis of identity. In moments of  identity crisis,  one, especially a leader - no matter how open and daring he/she tries to be - must thread with caution because of the high level of probability involved and the loftiness of the value at stake as any blunder, foreseen or unforeseen, may lead to the worst, that is, in this case, the loss of identity .

The world is re-branding. Intimidating claims and counter claims are rife on the world scene from “unknown faces” “unseen hands” and “unverified sources” with advertisement slogans and the attendant propaganda that have sensational gripping effects on their targets   - you and I.

One must not compromise the unchanging character and permanence of truth at the altars of pluralism otherwise the next generations of Catholics (the emphasis is here) including those of the LCWR will have, not one Catholic Church  to belong to, but many different denominations of the Catholic Church  to deal with. Ten different denominations may spring up in America alone and again turn around to knock at the door of Francis with such sensationally perfumed words. And it might no longer be one LCWR but different splinter groups in the LCWR each ruled by different or opposing theological clauses from the mainstream of thought that originally governed the mother LCWR.

The theological quarrels that gave birth to Modernism or  to the Reformation trace their roots to the failure of some theologians to know and be realistic about the difference between and the tension that brews up in the course of theological understanding of permanence and change, of the “Immanent Trinity” and “Economic Trinity”, between what God does “Ad Intra” and what He does “Ad Extra”, between - to use a term that is strictly Rahnerian - the “Undiscovered Unknown” and the “Discovered Unknown”, between the One (the Absolutely Undivided Transcendent Mystery which God is in himself) and the Many (the Triune community of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), between  Substance (Homoousious/ Ousia) and Accidents, and their relationships with each other. 
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It is very sad that Cardinal Gerard Ludwig Muller’s CDF is still aloof. In the presence of this aloofness to the needs of the faithfuls in America, one is tempted to, either believe Neil Ormerod who says that the use of authority is now subject to a hermeneutics of suspicion - the suspicion that what is at stake is not orthodoxy but the uncritical and unexamined assumptions of those in power. Or, to strongly maintain with the LCWR  - this position seems safer - that the drive for greater encounter with God, through Jesus Christ in the Spirit leading to a better appreciation of and commitment to love, even if this love is productive of miracles, signs, wonders, wealth and popularity or not, should not be stifled at the door of orthodoxy and hierarchy but that these - orthodoxy and hierarchy -  should serve love.                 

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 But I seem to believe that there  are two aspects of the theological contents to which Muller’s CDF is drawing the attention of the LCWR and that of her other numerous sympathizers like the Catholic Theological Society of America to. 

That the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger extolled the contributions of Telhard de Chardin goes to show that even the ex-pontiff, Benedict XVI was not afraid of the theory of evolution. Why then would Pope Francis I be?  Who actually is afraid of Conscious Evolution?

Creation, Redemption and Transformation have been discovered to be three radically necessary, decisive, unrepeatable, irreversible dimensions – historical moments, if you like – of the Reality that is continuously evolving, whatever name one chooses to give to the Reality which its unfolding can also be perceived through the difference and the tension that exists between the Kantian two worlds of the Nominal and that of Experience; or, through the  Hegelian lenses of thesis, anti-thesis  and synthesis; or, through the Heidegerian necessary pre-occupation with "Dasein" as a moment in the understanding of the truth of the Incarnation; or, as a “process” in the thinking of Whitehead.

 For the total and correct appreciation of the Truth about, the Beauty and the Unity of this Reality which alone is the Good, and no other, these three dimensions - Creation, Redemption and Transformation –must  be taken into serious account and must not be confused with one another even in our efforts to establish the Utility of the Reality and its practical implications for Christian living. Nevertheless, one has to be realistic that rich and powerful theological contents are involved and stand to be explored and must be exploited.  This is one side of the question - and one which is very much appealing to investigative and adventurous theological minds like the LCWR.

There is the second aspect. Diversion. Equivocation. Subversion. Perversion. Inversion. These are also different ingredients - highly related and influential in their own rights - that forcefully assert  themselves and seek to be grafted and integrated  into the Reality that is continuously and consciously evolving so much so that, even though the  very structures of Reality are well outlined even in their evolutionary conditions, the different coloration introduced by these elements, though at times catalystcal, influential , attractive and strongly appealing, constitute ineradicable aberrations which have the more dangerous character of making the Enemy far better positioned to launch a more fatal attack against God and the community of faith.

The LCWR is not the Enemy, has never been and can never be. She is a beautiful bride and a huge asset which, it seems very clear, Pope Francis’ Holy See cherishes and regards as a strong collaborator in ministry and the development of the faith. But the LCWR can also become unnecessarily nagging in an unconscious manner. For instance, a lay person from one of the neighboring towns once gave a picture of his understanding of evolution as implying that his great grandfathers of antiquity descended from the wild ape. In as much as this truth is highly exploratory especially giving the breathtaking discoveries in Architecture and the natural sciences, its resonance, acceptance and influence in the community of faith are somewhat trajectory in the light of the secondary aspect illuminated above.  The community of faith may be rife with suspicions to the extent that one becomes inundated. But is it justifiable to swerve a need which serves the cause of one particular generation or context only with the general need, or common good except if the Common Good is inundated with suspicions and total hollowness?

Somebody must take responsibility for the Faith. Cardinal Muller has accepted to do this job, and deserves our trust. And it appears the CDF boss does not want to be the full either. 

  “Be not afraid!.”   John Paul II employed this phrase innumerable time in his questions and answers book “Crossing The Threshold of Hope” to douse the fears and anxiety that clung to the mindset of the Christian journalist Vittorio Messori. Vittorio Messori’s mindset, no doubt, is playing out and re-asserting itself again in the frustrations of the LCWR. And it is not only about  LCWR or about the teeming population of the Catholic faithfuls in America only. It is the real and exact place where every soul-searching and functional Catholic mindset not giving to frivolities should be. Even Peter himself - Pope Francis I - is there already.

 And when Jesus traced Peter to this place, he asked him “Simon, Son of Jonah, do you love me?” I wonder how many theologians have watched to the end the ensuing drama between grace and freedom, between love and fear, between power and weakness. At the one end is Jesus. At the other end, Satan standing at close proximity behind Peter and waiting in ambush. Thank God that by prayers and by witnessing only in the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter took  decisive steps away from Satan and made steady progress in the union with Jesus.  

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God is an awfully transcendent, incomprehensible, absolute mystery. This inspires awe, fear and total reservations. If He was thunder and consuming fire, or anti-homosexual/lesbian in the Old Testament, no theology of the New Testament or that of the Second Vatican Council has changed that or has the power to change this. Instead, the situation is radically confirmed in the N.T. or by the Second Vatican Council itself. 

Every attempt to trifle with this truth always boomerangs. And nowhere has the power and authority of God been challenged than in this age of Satanism. From the highly secularized European/American society where leaders, it seems, have taken a unanimous but secret decision to expel God from the human society and give over the place He originally occupied to secular Humanism, through the Satanic dictatorship propagated erroneously as the real contents of Islam in the Middle East, to the confusion ravaging the African mindset that has been extolled as being at a very close proximity with the divine especially about values thus bringing about corruption, poverty, disease, hunger and high mortality rate, somebody has need to be afraid. And it is greatly to be appreciated if that person is Pope Francis I.                                            
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Nevertheless, the developmental structure or dynamism of truth does encourage one to a constant dialogue. Who, I ask again, is afraid of evolution, whether conscious and unconscious?  If our age has brought us face to face with a need which our belief in a Triune God provides, I am convinced no dogma or misguide and exclusivist pre-occupations with and faithful adherence to antiquated formulas, rituals or practices can rob us of this divine provision. Orthodoxy and hierarchy must be compelled to serve Divine Love, not to enslave or hide it in a malicious way. To this extent, the LCWR is damn correct. This is the manifest implication of the Incarnation or the Economic Trinity. 

It is noteworthy to watch the manner of the evolution of God. Absolute Mystery – Decalogue — Prophecy – Incarnation (well established in the N.T.)  -  Community (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) - Family (Fatherhood, Motherhood and Sonship/Daughterhood). 

But the LCWR must know that the Holy See is studying this evolution of God with them, but at different levels. While the LCWR is focused on the many, on change and on the Economic Trinity, she must also be made to become aware of the fact that the Holy See is resolved to maintain the purity of the faith and to preserve this faith for the generation of the human family yet unborn. In doing this, the Holy See, by the privileged position it occupies, must force itself to appreciate the difference between the One and the Many, Permanence and Change, Immanent Trinity and Economic Trinity, what God does “Ad Extra” and what he does “Ad Extra”, and try as much as possible to manage the tensions that brew up in between. For instance, the approval for the ordination of women will surely gladden the hearts of some ( if not all) American faithfuls but the opposite is true for the Church in Africa. 70% of the faithfuls in a native Nigerian Church will abandon Holy Communion in a Church service where a nun alone is the extra-ordinary minister of the Eucharist even if they are aware that the sacred specie was consecrated by a Bishop or a priest. In other words, there is also the particular and the universal, the subjective and the objective.Surely, this cannot be about perpetuating male dominance, and the defenders of the thesis on women ordination cannot be said to be speaking for the whole Church. Other intervening variables may come to  assert themselves along the line - for example, in reference to the atmosphere of Islam with regards to the place women occupy in it. This does not mean that women must be denied their rights in order to appease a decadent oppressive rigid mentality. But can the LCWR's U.S.A provide accommodation to the millions of people that may be displaced and turned into refugees when jihadists  begin to build on jaundiced propaganda to drive home the force of its naughty arguments to its adherents that have been perpetually made to live in total mental slavery through indoctrination? Can the LCWR be any exhaustively helpful?

In this age of information technology, a decision taken and practiced by a family in a room in remote Denver Village sends rippling effects, beyond the control of that family, to the entire continent of Africa or Islamic Middle East which might greatly imperil missionary works or dialogue. The other way is also correct.

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This difference, the tensions and the necessary interactions are real, must have to be seen to be real, and must not be neglected and neither should anyone attempt to downplay their imports for Theology in the 21^st century Church.

In fact it is within this penumbra that real and authentic theological questions and challenges, not elsewhere, for instance in the dogmatism of old Theology or in the prodigality of a new one, hope to be addressed and given the adequate attention that are required. And whether the solutions proffered within this environment should be accepted or rejected and locked away in the prison yard of bias and prejudice erected by dominant opinion or by authoritarianism, to learn live realistically and be sustained in this environment - knowing that we never see except through a mirror – is what it means to be Church or a Theologian in the 21^st century Church.

The inability of a person or group to live this reality about Theology – whether the person is supported by the influential currents of the dominant opinion, a powerfully attractive slogan, the voice of a minority in pain or by clericalism – has the capacity to send him/her to the ecclesiastical zoo, or to the highly resentful mold of ecclesiolatry. The vindication or final adjudication is the contrast that has emerged and the anti-climax that the Church and the theological community have come to witness, each from its own corner and at different degrees of combustible resentment or elation, about the life and works of Dominican Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez and that of the founder of a notable congregation under investigations by the Vatican for sexual abuse, fraud and pharisaism. 

 In each case, the Church could have listened or acted but She did none. The Theological Community or groups involved could have listened but did not.

But since the NCR editorial made reference to discernment, then it is beholden on all of us to assert in full, not tangentially, the implication of discernment for both sides. 

Somebody must take responsibility for the Faith. Thus, if, from the one side, the CDF cannot do it because it is perceived to be archaic and authoritarian and from the other side, the LCWR is perceived to be unnecessarily self-assertive and being inclined to disobedience and apostasy, then a middle way must have to be discovered and adopted.

Or,  we leave it completely to God to fight His own battles since it will not be proper to allow some groups turn into Pressure groups in and against the Church. This is the reason why the MarysRose Organization is talking about the SACRED DEED. The Sacred Deed is an idea, and at the same time, an experience. 

The issues here are quite contextual and at the same time, contentious.
Such moments of doctrinal conflicts or tensions as the one between the CDF and LCWR have always engaged the MarysRose Organization and have created  tasks for her. The Sacred Deed presents a middle way forward - one free from rancor and suspicions. 

In a previous piece <<

http://revfrkennethevurulobi.blogspot.com/2013/06/faith-and-ministry-in-church-today_4339.html

>> I have made efforts to outline the theological basis and need for a daily profession of the faith of Nicea in a new and more practical way, and how this answers the doctrinal questions about contexualization.This is what the Sacred Deed represents and promises to serve.    Here in Nigeria, where the paraphernalia of medieval tyranny are cherished and deployed as official tools of ecclesiastical government to serve, not the needs of Vatican I or II but the official inclusion and institutionalization of idolatry, the LCWR predicament is first of all my predicament before it is theirs, perhaps in ways that seem directly opposed to each other. Some of us in the Local Church here in Nigeria are kicking violently against corruption of a type, a new inquisition and terrorism. And needfully too. But to hang our burden of suspicion on this friendly and loving face of Pope Francis I that looks  the Church directly on the face and at the same time challenge us is to be unnecessarily unreal and exasperating.

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Fear. Afraid. Undecided. These may be correct and may even prove to be the real attitude and answer that the LCWR will have to get from their beloved Francis. Francis himself has even talked about more radical issues than the LCWR has. But we must allow them evolve by themselves. The ongoing administrative reforms heroically undertaken by Pope Francis unburdens our suspicion and jog our expectations over and against the autocracy, careerism, clericalism, corruption that attempted to stifle growth, development and progress and impeded dialogue. Therefore, “Be not Afraid”.  It is still our beloved Francis - but now transfigured on the high Vatican Hill. Smaller Peters might say lets build three tents but then stronger issues and considerations may be beckoning.

The LCWR should not spoil the show for others but should eschew attitudes and undiscerning zeal that have the capacity to put her on the path of disobedience. The father, though loving and petting, may be required to wield the stick so as to keep the unruly kids in line, or else they are poisoned by the Enemy or knocked down by a drunken driver. And if he does not have the heart to do it, he may call Welfare. Duty and responsibility, more than old Vatican bug of clericalism, is a compelling force here.  

On the strength of this, the LCWR should submit herself to a critical evaluation of herself and whatever she professes and represents and be positive about her divine provisions even if this means a painful reconstruction of her old self and all that she stands for. The purity of intentions does permit, and cannot refuse to submit to a necessary scrutiny.

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Generally speaking - and this is my stand - theology  must wrestle with that which is authentic and real in human history and experience. In doing this, one may risk standing astride the limits set by orthodoxy, and yet sympathetically discover that there is a valley between this boundary and the problems or issues one has set out to confront and address to the extent that the required attention may still be lacking even if one has to over-stretch one’s theological muscles or over-labor the theological lenses.

 But truth must be told - can any true theology comfortably neglect or ignore those issues that are real and authentic in human history and experience even if they lie outside the boundaries set by orthodoxy? Or, can orthodoxy toy with the difficult but rewarding task of closing boundaries with theological issues and challenges that are highly contextual. Put in a language that is direct: what is the implication of orthodoxy for contextualization under a papacy overseen by brother Francis?

Pope Francis I must realize that contextualization especially in regard of the Synod on the family, is not something on the fringes of the theological enterprise. It is at the very center of what it means to do theology in today’s world. And that the contextual theologian like the LCWR faces a number of issues and questions that were seldom dealt with in Classical Theology.

In his book, Models of Contextual Theology, S.B. Bevans has identified and equally classified issues surrounding contextual theology into four basic groups: issues of theological method; issues of basic theological orientation, of criteria for orthodoxy; issues of cultural identity as compared to theologies already in place in a culture (e.g popular religiosity); and social change. 

As Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice rightly pointed out, Contextual Theology is concerned with the question of “what the universal dimension of Christianity means in concrete terms.

However, a Universal Theology does not and cannot duplicate a Contextual one; neither can a Contextual theology duplicate a Universal one. While a Universal Theology defines the meaning of unity and serves as a reference point for a Contextual one, a Contextual Theology takes up the concrete implications and demands of the faith in their relationship with the universal faith and as well supplies the raw data which a universal theology may need to work with.

A Contextual Theology without a universal one breeds an unnecessary duplication of the faith (syncretism, theological pluralism, etc). The other way round hangs faith on the air – far above the reach and practice of ordinary persons as this relates to their individual history and experience. This latter position draws programmes for a mission that has no theological or spiritual contents as its remainder if the definition of the term “world diplomacy” is applied to it. Or, the term “ecclesiolatory”, to borrow from  Thomas Fox, is in place with regard to the oversight function of the Vatican. While the U.S is far more equipped to run its affairs in the former instance, the Vatican, in the latter case, appears very unappealing and a nuisance.